Armando Iannucci, the mind behind HBO’s “Veep” and the satirical political hits “In the Loop” (2009) and “The Death of Stalin” (2017), is no stranger to navigating political satire. Yet, nearly a decade after ‘Stalin,’ the British filmmaker is finding it harder than ever to secure funding—particularly for a project he’s long been eager to make.
Speaking at a recent event in Liverpool (via Deadline), Iannucci revealed that a Donald Trump–focused project has run into unexpected roadblocks. Financiers, he says, are wary of potential “political repercussions.”
The project, based on Trump’s speeches, has drawn cautious responses from U.S. buyers. “I got a lot of, ‘Yeah, you wouldn’t get the money for that at the moment, I’m afraid,’” Iannucci recounted. “So I said, ‘Why not?’ [They replied] ‘Well, you know, if you want what comes with it…’”
Iannucci described warnings from American journalists, who cautioned that publicly criticizing Trump could bring intense scrutiny. “If you’re on the list, your life is made miserable,” he said. “The inland revenue will come calling; you’d better lawyer up, you will spend the next four years just weighed down by legal issues you have to get through.”
Honestly, do we really need another Donald Trump movie?
Iannuci adds that there are broader concerns for U.K.-based productions, with Trump’s revived threats of tariffs adding another layer of uncertainty. “Nobody knows how it works, but that’s not the point. The point is, there will be financiers in America about to give money to a project, going, ‘Do you know what? Let’s just see how this plays out before I hand that over,” Iannucci said. “And so you’ll have another project sitting there.”
Trump or no Trump, this isn’t the first time Iannucci has hit a funding wall. His Riz Ahmed-led project “Growth,” which was slated to explore the meteoric rise—and devastating fallout—of a Snapchat-like social platform, was supposed to shoot this year, but I recently heard it has stalled completely.
Nobody expected a 55-year-old NC-17 movie to be one of the surprise box office stories of the fall. Yet here we are, and this absolutely puts a smile on my face.