Steve Coogan to star in movie about finding King Richard III's bones under a parking lot

As reported by the BBC, Steve Coogan has confirmed that he’s going to make a movie about the somewhat improbable discovery of King Richard III’s remains under a parking lot in England in 2012, with Coogan and frequent collaborator Jeff Pope writing the script—the duo’s previous collaborations include the Philomena screenplay, which was nominated for an Academy Award. Coogan will be playing the husband of Philippa Langley, the woman whose work with the Richard III Society convinced the University Of Leicester to dig up the aforementioned parking lot. The BBC says no other potential stars have been named, including who will actually play Langley since she is the main character, but filming is expected to start next year.

The story also mentions that rumors of Coogan doing a movie about this have been around since he visited the new Richard III visitor center a few years ago, suggesting that celebrities—like writers—can’t do anything without accepting the need to turn it into Content. Maybe he just wanted to learn about this dude who was a king and then got buried in an unmarked grave because of the changing political climate, and then his grave got paved over and became a parking lot, but then someone told Coogan he should write a movie about it? Not everything has to be something. But… this is becoming something. Anyway, after visiting the aforementioned center, Coogan explained that the movie he wants to make is “about the amateur versus the establishment, and intuition versus academia,” just in case the idea of a king being found buried under a parking lot wasn’t enough of an indication that sometimes the establishment isn’t worth shit. It’s barely even a metaphor, it’s just literally what happened here. Percy Shelley could’ve saved some lines in his sonnet if it was just “they found Ozymandias buried under a parking lot.”