Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People Returns to Cinemas After 24 Years — SkimNews
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- 24 Hour Party People is returning to cinemas 24 years after its 2002 release, prompting a reader Q&A with director Michael Winterbottom — questions close at 6pm on Sunday 4 October.
- The film traces Manchester's music scene from the Sex Pistols' 1976 Lesser Free Trade Hall gig through Factory Records, Joy Division, New Order, and the Madchester era of Happy Mondays and the Haçienda, ending before Oasis 'swaggered in.'
- Steve Coogan stars as the late broadcaster and Factory Records boss Tony Wilson, alongside Paddy Considine, Shirley Henderson, Andy Serkis, and John Simm.
- Winterbottom began in television in the late 1980s after studying English at Oxford, directing episodes of Boon and Cracker plus an Ingmar Bergman documentary, before his 1995 feature debut Butterfly Kiss.
- His subsequent features include 1996's Jude, 1997's Bosnian war drama Welcome to Sarajevo, 2000 western The Claim, 2004's sexually explicit 9 Songs, and literary adaptation A Cock and Bull Story with Coogan and Rob Brydon.
- Winterbottom, Coogan, and Brydon are now making a fifth Trip instalment — The Trip to the Northern Lights — with the trio eating, bickering, and impersonating their way through the Nordic countries.
- The Trip series became famous for a Coogan-vs-Brydon Michael Caine impression competition that the source says became 'almost as famous as the films themselves.'
Why it matters: The re-release gives new audiences a chance to see the definitive Factory Records/Haçienda origin myth that preceded Britpop, while the confirmed fifth Trip film signals Winterbottom-Coogan-Brydon's improv-road-trip format still has commercial legs — Coogan's Tony Wilson portrayal remains the film's calling card for anyone wondering whether to book a ticket.
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