Nigel Farage: The Movie snapped up by Hollywood as studio set to sign £60m deal

 

The Bad Boys of Brexit will be turned into a six-part film

The Daily Telegraph

13 AUGUST 2017

Coming to a television set near you: Farage the movie. 

A major Hollywood studio is poised to sign a deal with Nigel Farage and Arron Banks to make a £60million, six-part film of Mr Banks’ best-selling diary of the referendum campaign The Bad Boys of Brexit.

The script is nearly finished and shooting will start in the New Year. The series will air in April, once the deal is signed next month at a meeting in Los Angeles.

The story is told from the point of view of Gerry Gunster, a US pollster who advised the Leave.EU campaign, and tells how Mr Farage and Mr Banks won against the odds and ended up campaigning for Donald Trump's successful campaign in the US presidential election.

One source said Mr Gunster will be portrayed as a “respected US expert being employed to control these British lunatics in the referendum.

“It naturally descends into farce - but they win against all odds - he is then horrified that the British lunatics are sent to help a US TV reality star fight for the presidency.

“The farce continues and - guess what - they win and suddenly they are catapulted into the alternative White House to change the world, what could possibly go wrong!”

Casting takes place this Autumn for the £60million series. Mr Farage and Mr Banks are expected to be executive producers, as well as LBC radio presenter Iain Dale who published the book.

Mr Dale, who will sign the deal with Mr Banks and his aide Andy Wigmore in the US next month, told The Telegraph: "Having conquered Europe it seems The Bad Boys of Brexit are about to woo Hollywood. 

"The main question is whether Danny DeVito is available to play Arron Banks. I just hope the writers can capture the humour and chaos displayed in the book."

The Bad Boys of Brexit detailed how Mr Banks, his key aide Andy Wigmore and Mr Gunster worked closely with Mr Farage, persuading him to take part in the famous Battle of the Thames when a flotilla of pro-Leave fishing boats was assailed by one carrying singer Bob Geldof a week before the vote in June last year.

Other less successful ventures include a failed BBop concert which would have featured see members of 1980s pop band Bucks Fizz and an Elvis impersonator.

American Oscar winner Kevin Spacey or Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberatch have been previously tipped to play Mr Farage. 

However the former UK Independence Party leader was coy about who coy about him when challenged by The Daily Telegraph, saying: “I am hoping if they do make the film, I think I should play me. I am really good at being me.

“It will be about Brexit and the start of the revolution of 2016, how Brexit stunned the establishment and led to directly to the victory of Donald J Trump.”

Amazon, the online bookseller, describes the book as an “honest, uncensored and highly entertaining diary of the campaign that changed the course of history”. 

It adds: “From a David Brent-style office on an industrial estate in the south-west, Banks masterminded an extraordinary social media campaign against the tyrannies of Brussels that became a mass movement for Brexit.

“He tore up the political rule book, sinking £8 million of his personal fortune into a madcap campaign targeting ordinary voters up and down the country.

“His anti-establishment crusade upset everyone from Victoria Beckham to NASA and left MPs open-mouthed. 

“When his rabble-rousing antics landed him in hot water, he simply redoubled his efforts to wind up the targets.

“Lurching from comedy to crisis (often several times a day), he found himself in the glare of the media spotlight, fending off daily bollockings from Nigel Farage and po-faced MPs.”