People Just Do Nothing Movie Shooting In Japan And Hitting Cinemas In 2020

BBC Films

Award-winning BBC comedy People Just Do Nothing is getting the big-screen treatment. 

The BAFTA-winning sitcom first aired on BBC Three in 2014, with the fifth and final series broadcasting on BBC Two in 2018.

The mockumentary follows Kurupt FM: a pirate radio station in West London, booming garage music across the airwaves, and the lives of the people who run it.

The show wrapped up with a bang, with MC Grindah, DJ Beats and their friends releasing a mix-tape after lengthy touring.

With a huge cult following, especially after the series dropped on Netflix, it’s no surprise the misadventures of Kurupt FM are now heading to cinemas.

BBC

People Just Do Nothing: Big In Japan has already begun production in Japan and the UK for six weeks, and is due be released in cinemas across the UK and Ireland in August 2020, as Deadline reports.

With Focus Features and BBC Films backing the project and Universal Pictures distributing internationally, it marks the first time a BBC Three series has been developed into a fully-fledged feature film.

Everyone is returning for the project: Allan Mustafa (MC Grindah), Hugo Chegwin (DJ Beats), Asim Chaudhry (Chabuddy G), Steve Stamp (Steves), Dan Sylvester (Decoy), Lily Brazier (Miche), Hitomi Souno (Miki) and Ken Yamamura (Taka).

BBC

The film will pick up not long after the show ended, with the boys of Kurupt FM living quietly after the end of their pirate radio station. However, when word emerges that one of their tunes has been used in a Japanese game show, they head east to enjoy fame and fortune.

MC Grindah told Deadline:

Japan is the most advanced city in the world so it makes perfect sense that they would recognise our lyrical talent. We can’t wait to go over there and completely destroy the music scene. In a good way.

Chabuddy G added: ‘You know me, I can sell anything mate. Ice to an Eskimo, halal meat to a racist vegan… selling garage music to Japan is water off a ducks beak mate.’

BBC

The fifth series was a hit with critics, with The Guardian‘s Tim Dowling writing: ‘Idiotic hubris, crushing realisation and denial should be depressing, but in the fifth and final BBC series, these tragicomic characters transform it all into something joyous.’

The Independent‘s Sean O’Grady wrote: ‘BBC Three really has been a marvellous comedy incubator – and People Just Do Nothing may well be its towering achievement.’

People Just Do Nothing: Big In Japan hits UK cinemas in August 2020.

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Cameron Frew

After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.