Tim Key Has Had An Idea For A Film

I’ve always thought Tim Key looks a bit like a digitally-produced police e-fit. Perhaps that’s why he was so unprepared for the demands of the physical world when his first book was published back in 2007. Only 600 copies of the book were ever produced, but now that Tim’s shifted all the ones he’d held back to flog for three or four times the retail value on eBay, he’s decided to send it back to the printers. A new version of 25 Poems, 3 Recipes and 32 Other Suggestions (An Inventory) will arrive on the 15th of February, so fans of laughing at wry, silly things will no longer have to shoplift or – worse – sell family members into prostitution to own a copy.

As well as that, Tim’s going on a tour. He will be ferrying his award-winning show “The Slutcracker” around the UK and Ireland from the 15th of February, starting at Norwich Arts Centre and finishing up in Dublin on the 23rd of March. Details here.

Here’s a snippet from the book in which Tim relates an idea he has had for a film.

FILM PITCH: APRIL

NB This pitch should be recited after ingratiating yourself to film execs. Explain you’ve got a good feeling about your film idea. Then sit down (presumably around a glass table) and explain the following.

It will be a Hollywood film.

It will have plenty of action.

There are no subtitles, everyone speaks in American English.

There are lots of giants. Kidman, Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant – all giants.

They are married to Bill Murray (Ghostbusters), Adrian Brody and an unknown actor. These will play normal-sized people.

It should be a Bond film.

The first fifty minutes: nothing at all happens. Just characters buying milk/going to the gym.

Should retain the audience’s interest because there are three A-listers playing giants.

This idea of Eddy Murphy playing more than one part in a single film. All around there are loads of Eddie Murphies who are women and some fat Eddie Murphies.

There is a scene where Nicole Kidman puts her foot down on Bill Murray’s shoulder, dislocating it. She is thoroughly distraught. He accuses her of being taller than the giant marshmallow man at the end of his film, Ghostbusters. She says she’s stressed.

This incident is 55 minutes in.

We cut to a twenty-minute scene where Hugh Grant is playing tennis with his comparatively short wife. He keeps trying to lob her because to him she seems short but she keeps putting away her smashes because in actual fact, relative to the court she’s actually normal-sized. She is, in fact, 155cm tall.

Enter Bond. Played by a new actor, he is about thirty and in this film wears a tracksuit. He introduces himself by saying “my name’s James Bond, or Jim.”

Jim announces that someone from Russia has been spying against the country where the film is taking place (USA or Germany).

Julia Roberts meets a new giant (played by Lawrence fishbone or Richard Wilson depending on budgets) and does ballroom dancing. Adrian Brody sees this through the skylight where he’s been spying on his wife. He is crying.

Adrian Brody is trying to get through to a radio phone-in but he can’t get through and then his credit runs out. He is pissed and goes for a drive.

The spies have almost finished making a megagun (a style of gun that is screwed onto the moon and fires down pieces of moon). When one of the other characters (played by Dench) says “like a potato gun”, James Bond almost loses it and says “no, more complex.”

A dream sequence of Adrian Brody. But it’s from the point of view of the actor – not the character. He is dreaming of scenarios where he is not an actor.

Ending. The end of Usual Suspects is very memorable. The last fifteen minutes of this should be exactly the same as the last fifteen minutes of Usual Suspects.

Possible other scenes:

A football match.

A bit where it all goes black and white. (In this bit we fleetingly see the girl from Schindler’s List in the red anorak.)

A bit where Adrian Brody is shouting at the director and the director is shouting at him. Brody’s shouting “you’re ruining my life, man!” and the director is shouting “we’re rolling, Brody! I’m gonna put this in the final version of the film, you shit!”

The giants going clothes shopping (with light-hearted music under), and none of them finding anything close to the right size.

Bond in his hotel room drinking Red Stripe.

TIM KEY