Today in they’re just adapting everything these days: Prince Andrew! Deadline reports that Prince Andrew’s notorious interview about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein will be adapted into a feature film.
Prince Andrew, the third child and second son of Queen Elizabeth II, sat down with BBC’s Newsnight in 2019 to discuss his connections to the American financer Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender who ran a high-profile sex trafficking operation. Epstein was arrested in 2019, and died by suicide in prison. Epstein had connections to a network of influential and famous individuals, among them was Prince Andrew. The film, titled Scoop, is based on Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews by Sam McAlister, a former producer on Newsnight.
Prince Andrew’s BBC interview did not go as the royal family had likely planned. The royal received backlash for dodging questions and for a lack of sympathy toward Epstein’s victims. He also failed to explain why he hung out with a convicted sex offender. Following the disastrous interview, Prince Andrew was removed from royal duties.
Per Deadline, Hugh Grant is rumored to be among the names on a wish list for actors to play the disgraced Duke of York. British playwright Peter Moffat, who wrote HBO’s The Night Of and Showtime’s Your Honor is writing the screenplay. Shooting for the film is set to begin in November. Moffat told Deadline that the film is “about how the BBC’s Newsnight team got the scoop, then the actual filming of it. The other thing is, ‘why did he agree to do it?’”