The Trip to Italy was, by most estimates, no inferior companion to 2011’s generally beloved The Trip, and so it would only make sense that Michael Winterbottom, Steve Coogan, and Rob Brydon have a third feature — with a third series of locations — in the works. Next on their plate, according to NME, is a “venture from the North Atlantic to the Mediterranean coast,” the latest set of antics taking place within “Cantabria, the Basque region, Aragon, Rioja, Castile-La Mancha and Andalusia.”
As was the case with the first two installments, this will also be shot, edited, and presented as a television series for BBC2; it’s uncertain whether this will be before (as in the original outing) or after (as in the second) the feature premieres. Shooting begins sometime this year, perhaps after Coogan completes production on An Ideal Home, which Variety tells us he’s leading alongside Paul Rudd. Andrew Fleming is writing and directing the project, its story concerning “a bickering couple with an extravagant life, but when the grandson of Coogan’s character shows up and has nowhere to go, the couple reluctantly decide to take him in.”
Variety also tell us Bruno Dumont will also produce another TV-film hybrid: a Joan of Arc musical entitled Jeanette. His Li’l Quinquin follow-up — which will be produced for television overseas and hit domestic territories theatrically — takes inspiration from Charles Peguy‘s play Le Mystere de la charite de Jeanne d’Arc, specifically the section in which Joan begins “to embrace her sacred mission” between the ages of 8 and 12.
Jeanette is not the Joan of Arc musical your mind might envision, what with its techno-rock compositions from Gautier Serre, a.k.a. Igorrr. (Listen to one of his albums if you want some sense of what Dumont, Peguy et al. are aiming for.) Philippe Decouflé will choreograph the production, which begins rolling cameras this August. Right now, there’s only one question on my mind: is Lisa Hartmann too old to take the role and give us a new version of “Cause I Knew“?