Magnolia Home Entertainment will release on Blu-ray Declan Lowney's comedy Alan Partridge (2013), starring Steve Coogan, Colm Meaney, and Sean Pertwee. The release will be available for purchase on June 10th.
Synopsis: Steve Coogan's famous local radio DJ/one time talk show host Alan Partridge is one of the UK's most-loved comedy characters. He comes to the cinema screen in this summer's unmissable British comedy Alan Partridge. When Alan's radio station, North Norfolk Digital, is taken over by a new media conglomerate, it sets in motion a chain of events which see Alan having to work with the police to defuse a potentially violent siege. Will Alan talk round disgruntled colleague Pat Farrell? Will there be shots fired in anger? Will Alan become a public hero or simply another footnote in the history of broadcasting?
Special Features: Behind The Scenes Featurette AXS TV: A look at 'Alan Partridge'
Alan Partridge, the most famous comedy character inhabited by actor Steve Coogan, is to star in a second feature film, it has been confirmed.
Following the success of last year's movie debut Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, Coogan will also don the fictional radio DJ's guise for a second series of Mid Morning Matters on Sky Atlantic.
The new series will be complemented by a further new Partridge special, a spoof of popular long-running BBC documentary series Coast, in which Alan is expected to look at Norfolk's coastline.
Henry Normal, co-owner with Coogan of production company Baby Cow, told the Guardian today: "We are planning a sequel [to Alpha Papa], yes, that will be great.
"We are also looking at doing more Mid Morning Matters and another Sky special, a little bit like Coast with Alan Partridge, except I don't think he goes out of Norfolk. I think it's things of interest in Norfolk, that's the general theme."
He added: "We start writing now. I think we make it at the end of summer."
Originally conceived in the late 1980s for radio satire On The Hour, Partridge graduated to television in The Day Today. However it was not until he gained his own series - also first on radio and later moving to television, Knowing Me, Knowing You... With Alan Partridge - a spoof chat show, that he became a firm cult favourite.
A sitcom focusing on the life of the deluded and almost talentless one-time TV presenter and regional radio DJ followed in 1997. I'm Alan Partridge ran for two series to great acclaim, and was followed in 2003 by a special entitled Anglian Lives, spoofing regional television news programming.
Coogan revived the character in 2008 as part of a one-man live tour, and with sponsorship from Fosters beer, a new series seeing Alan hosting a programme on fictional station North Norfolk Digital, launched online in 2011. The series was broadcast on television by Sky Atlantic the following year, alongside a further two new specials: Alan Partridge: Welcome To The Places Of My Life and Alan Partridge On Open Books With Martin Bryce.
Further details of the Alan Partridge movie sequel have yet to be revealed, but it could be released as early as 2015.
Henry Normal was speaking at the Advertising Week Europe event in London, where he told delegates that television comedy needs advertising money.
Normal said: "We've got a problem with scripted comedy. The budgets are getting less and less. 14 years ago when we [Baby Cow] made our first show for the BBC, Human Remains, we were getting more than we get today.
"We need advertisers' help to solve that problem. All the programmes we've ever made, I don't see why there shouldn't be advertising in them. I'd put ads in them now. But in 14 years I've hardly spoken to any advertising people whatsoever. It would be great to talk. My door is always open."
He added: "We've done three ad-funded shows in 14 years. In the next 14 years I'd love all our shows to be funded by ads."
IFC Films and MPI Home Media will release on Blu-ray acclaimed director Michael Winterbottom's latest film The Trip to Italy (2014), starring Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Rosie Fellner, Rosie Fellner, and Claire Keelan. The release will be available for purchase on December 23rd.
Michael Winterbottom's largely improvised 2010 film, The Trip, took comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon—or semifictionalized versions thereof—on a restaurant tour around northern England. In this witty and incisive follow-up, Winterbottom reunites the pair for a new culinary road trip, retracing the steps of the Romantic poets' grand tour of Italy and indulging in some sparkling banter and impersonation-offs. Rewhetting our palates from the earlier film, the characters enjoy mouthwatering meals in gorgeous settings from Liguria to Capri while riffing on subjects as varied as Batman's vocal register, the artistic merits of "Jagged Little Pill," and, of course, the virtue of sequels.
Winterbottom trains his camera to capture the idyllic Italian landscape and the gastronomic treasures being prepared and consumed while keeping the film centered on the crackling chemistry between the two leads. The Trip to Italy effortlessly melds the brilliant comic interplay between Coogan and Brydon into quieter moments of self-reflection, letting audiences into their insightful ruminations on the nuances of friendship and the juggling of family and career. The result is a biting portrait of modern-day masculinity.
