Just who could Greed possibly be based on?
STEVE COOGAN is to star in a film about a retail billionaire who plunders his employees’ pension scheme and employs sweatshop labour.
Greed, a black comedy, is described as fictional and Coogan said yesterday that this character was a composite of more than one person. But he added that if audiences didn’t recognise who some of it was based on, “they must have some learning difficulties”.
The plot centres on the tycoon’s extravagant 60th birthday celebrations in a five-star hotel on the Greek island of Mykonos, where he entertains a host of celebrity friends. Pictures released yesterday showed Coogan with a mahogany tan and set of blinding white teeth, dressed in a toga. In another, he takes to the catwalk in a business suit at a fashion show as the audience applauds.
Coogan said his character is a “billionaire ---- who shafts his employees’ pension scheme and runs sweatshops in the developing world”.
Michael Winterbottom directs the film which co-stars Isla Fisher, David Mitchell, Stephen Fry and Ollie Locke.
Winterbottom has previously said: “The film is a satire about a billionaire who made his fortune in the clothing industry and accumulates a great fortune, but then has a major crisis.
“Beyond a few references and inspi- rations, it’s entirely a work of fiction. I hope the audience will reflect on how enormous the disparity between the rich and the poor is today… but it’s still a funny film. I don’t really believe in thesis cinema. I think that messages need to be coded and disguised in order to be effective.”
The film is due for release at the end of next year. It was part-financed by Film4, whose head of creative, Ollie Madden, said: “We can’t think of any- one better to take on the excessive world of business moguls and the super-rich than Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan. We know they’re going to make something both funny and with a genuine sting in the tail.”
Winterbottom and Coogan previously collaborated on The Trip, the improvised television comedy co-starring Rob Brydon, 24 Hour Party People and The Look of Love, the latter a biopic of Paul Raymond, the soft porn publisher and strip club owner.
Filming, which included three weeks in Mykonos, ended this week.
Greed originally had Sacha Baron Cohen as the star in 2016, when it was described as a satire on “perma-tanned billionaire businessmen who shamelessly invest money in offshore tax havens… the unacceptable face of capitalism”.
Audiences next see Coogan in Stan and Ollie, a biopic of Laurel and Hardy in which he co-stars with John C Reilly.