Channel 4 orders multi-millionaires comedy drama Loaded
- Loaded is a Channel 4 comedy drama about four friends who become rich when they sell their company
- The format is based on the award-winning Israeli comedy show Mesudarim
- 8 episodes will be filmed later this year
Channel 4 is making Loaded, a comedy drama about four life-long friends who become multi-millionaires overnight when they sell their videogame company.
The network explains: "Josh, Vinny, Ewan and Watto have just sold their start-up videogame company for a clean £246 million - the culmination of a billion man-hours of blood, sweat, toil, coding, shouting, swearing, fighting, hugging, pitching, grinding, and, occasionally, showering. Overnight, the four friends are transformed from 'people who play games' to 'serious players in the game...' - or are they?
"Almost immediately, the sweet smell of success takes on a bitter, slightly unpleasant tang. Josh, hyper-sensitive and riddled with 'millionaire's guilt', finds himself crippled by the burden of his wealth and its 'wider socio-economic implications'. Vinny lets his most extravagant desires run amok and buys a bespoke golden Viking helmet, but can a Nando's Black Card buy him the one thing he truly desires - respect? Straight-edge ex-junkie Watto finds past mistakes come back to haunt him and threaten not only his own fortune but that of his friends too. While tragic beta-male Ewan is eyeing up spending some of his money on reinventing himself, starting with 'an ear-job and nice new pair of chinos'."
The channel describes Loaded as a comedy drama about "friendship, ambition, gluttony, the peculiarly British distaste for other people's success, and what happens when you've got £11.5m in the bank but the cash machine has a £300 daily limit. It's about four friends trying to cling onto the slats of their relationship in the eye of a raging hurricane of money and excess and personal butlers and gold-plated Nordic headwear."
Loaded is based on the premise of the award-winning Israeli comedy Mesudarim (pictured), created by Muli Segev and Assaf Harel and Keshet Productions. The UK version of the show is being scripted by Jon Brown, a British comedy writer whose previous credits include Babylon, Fresh Meat, Mongrels and the film Cuban Fury.
He says: "I'm very much looking forward to mining the experience of being an instant millionaire in 2016 to find the most difficult, painful, socially uncomfortable experiences imaginable. For this is how it must be to be Loaded - a rollercoaster of pain and mistrust and confusion and guilt and isolation. A rollercoaster with really comfy seats."
Piers Wenger, Head of Drama at Channel 4, says: "Loaded is a hilarious and prescient comedy drama from one of the funniest young writers around. Exploring what it means to be rich beyond your wildest dreams at a time of life when your friends are almost certainly poor, Loaded is a truthful but comic portrait of a problem most of us can only dream of."
Kate Norrish and Polly Leys, the producers from production company Hillbilly Television, add: "We're delighted to be working with Channel 4, Keshet and the fabulously talented Jon Brown on Loaded. His take on the world is fresh, funny and pertinent and as two female exec producers with not very much cash we're looking forward to exploring how the other half live."
Sara Johnson from Keshet Productions comments: "We have a wonderful relationship with our co-producers Hillbilly and have laughed our way through the development period, care of the dynamic and entertaining work of Jon Brown. We are beyond excited to be bringing Loaded to the Channel 4 audience."
Filming on the 8 episodes of Loaded will begin later in 2016, with the cast list also due to be revealed at a later date.