The first whisperings of title trouble for Michael Winterbottom’s **The King Of Soho arose last month when it was revealed that the son of the movie’s subject, club owner and porn magnate Paul Raymond, intended to craft a competing project about his pop and laid legal claim to the title. Now Winterbottom’s backers at Channel 4 have agreed to change the title of the Steve Coogan film.
Howard Raymond, who has been working on developing his film for a while now, is putting it together with the aim of having Tom Hiddleston (a controversial choice, given the divided opinion of his huge fan base) play Raymond.
And it appears that despite the legal challenge, everything has been sorted out relatively amicably. "I am delighted that Michael Winterbottom has agreed to change the name of his film as it was causing a huge amount of confusion in the media that two films were being made about my father under the same title," Howard Raymond said in a statement picked up by The Guardian.
"It is unfortunate that it proved necessary to have to resort to legal proceedings to bring this issue to a conclusion but I am pleased that they have had a change of heart and backed down. I have never wanted or sought to prevent this rival production from making a film about my late father's life."
Winterbottom’s film, which also features Anna Friel, Imogen Poots and Tamsin Egerton, is now in post-production and will be out next year. There’s no indication on when Raymond’s film will be shooting, but if he still intends to use the High Lord Of Hiddlestonia, he’ll likely have to wait for the in-demand actor’s schedule to clear.