The king of cringe, Ricky Gervais (The Office) is set to bring back “the boss from hell” David Brent in David Brent: Life on the Road, in a new film, a collaboration between BBC Films, Entertainment One with distribution in the U.S. by Open Road Films. The character, now in his 50s, works “as a travelling salesman with Lavichem, a cleaning and ladies’ personal hygiene products company.”
Speaking to Digital Spy, Gervais said, “I said I’d never bring back The Office and I won’t – this isn’t that. This is David Brent now – what he’s doing now”. Gervais is also planning to make an album out of the movie’s soundtrack and “do some live gigs”. Added Gervais, “He’s still a sales rep, and he’s wasting all his hard-earned money on trying to become a rock star”.
In an interview with The Guardian, Gervais talked about the common thread in his oeuvre — “Everything I do is somehow rooted in humanity. It’s always about people, it’s always about the ego, it’s always about desperation. It’s quite existential.” In terms of the new environment the character finds himself in, Gervais said quite starkly, “In The Office he was 40 and basically with nice people. Now he’s in a room full of alpha males and he’s not the boss anymore and it really is dog eat dog”.
The film also stars Jo Hartley as Pauline, Mandeep Dhillon as Kaz and Tom Bennett as Nigel. It’ll be released in August. You can watch the trailer below.
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