Posted in: Current News, Editor's Picks TV News, HBO, Movies, TV | Tagged: alan partridge, armando iannucci, Avenue 5, cable, HBO, Home Box Office, In The Loop, julia louis-dreyfus, steve coogan, streaming, television, The Death of Stalin, the thick of it, tv, veep

HBO Lands Space Comedy From 'Veep' Creator Armando Iannucci

After spending seven seasons in Washington D.C., it's no surprise that Veep creator Armando Iannucci would want to get as far away from the nation's capital as possible… but this might be a little ridiculous. With HBO's Emmy-award dominating political comedy heading into its final season, the cable giant has greenlighted a pilot and back-up scripts for Iannucci's new comedy series Avenue 5 (working title). Created, written and executive produced by Iannucci, all that's currently known about the series is that it's reportedly set in the future on board a space ship in deep space; and that the series pilot is expected to film in London some time in 2018.

For the show's first four seasons, and before stepping down in 2015, Iannucci executive produced/ran Veep; helping it to become one of the most critically acclaimed and award-winning comedies of the past few years. From his beginnings working with Steve Coogan on the Alan Partridge series, Iannucci is best known for his unique brand of political satire with television series The Thick of It and the film In the Loop as well as his recently premiered Toronto Film Festival feature The Death of Stalin.

In an April 2017 interview with British news site The Independent, Iannucci discussed what his current level of involvement was in the show he created:

"I'm still in touch. For season 5 Dave [Mandel, the new showrunner] and I discussed the season but I then said 'you're in charge', because everyone has to know who's in charge and I knew I was going into Death of Stalin, so I knew I couldn't do both. But I then watched it as a viewer, which was really good because it was like watching Veep but not knowing who was going to speak next and what they were going to see.

HBO asked me if I wanted to stay on as an executive but I think once you move on you move on and it's far better for everyone that they know that that's it. If I was hovering over I'd want to get involved. It also felt to me to be the right time, I'd done four seasons and just won the Emmy and then the cliffhanger of it being a tie was sort of my finale with it. Total gridlock is how I wanted to leave it, knowing that it would give them a problem to deal with for the next series."

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