That Simon Pegg’s just hoovering up the roles. He’s already been attached to a role in comedy Run, Fat Boy, Run, but now he’s most definitely signed to play Toby Young in an adaptation of Young’s memoir How To Lose Friends And Alienate People.
Chronicling Young’s self-promoting attempts to make it as a star contributing editor for US culture mag Vanity Fair, How To Lose Friends… is a catalogue of his blunders and bad luck, while also taking aim at the pompous attitudes of the publication, its staff and particularly editor Graydon Carter.
With the lawyers at production company Number 9 films already sweating buckets, the names have naturally been altered to stop anyone trying to sue. So the mag that Pegg’s character will work for is called Sharps Magazine and the Carter-alike chief will be named Clayton Harding. See what they did there?
Adapted by Peter Straughan, the film will be directed by Curb Your Enthusiasm’s regular shot-caller Robert Weide next year in NYC and the UK.