Ricky Gervais is writing an animated comedy series about cats. Here are some early details of his latest project.
Ricky Gervais has tackled many areas of the entertainment industry – he co-wrote The Office, Extras and Life’s Too Short with Stephen Merchant, on his own he wrote and starred in Derek for Channel 4 and Afterlife for Netflix. He’s also starred in Hollywood films like Ghost Town and The Invention Of Lying, wrote and performed a string of sell out stand up comedy shows – Animals, Politics, Fame, Science, Humanity and he penned the bestselling Flannimals books.
According to the British Comedy Guide, Gervais is turning his hand to animation by writing a series about cats. The currently untitled show will see Gervais reunite with several stars of Afterlife, including Kerry Godliman, David Earl, Tom Basden, Diane Morgan and Tony Way.
Gervais posted a picture of the first recording session on Twitter/X, which also included actors Ricky Champ and Natalie Cassidy.
Answering a Q&A last year, Gervais said “we started it, and it’s gonna take a long time ‘cos it’s animation. It won’t be finished until next year [2024]. I don’t think there’s anything like it. I did animation ‘cos I thought, ‘I’m getting old now’ and filming is a hard slog. I thought, ‘Animation, that’s easy.’ It’s not. I’ve been a fool”.
A Flannimals animated series was commissioned by ITV before being cancelled, and a film was reportedly in development by Illumination, the company behind the Despicable Me franchise, with Simpsons writer Matt Selman writing the screenplay. To date, no film has been produced.
It hasn’t been confirmed which network the show will be broadcast on, though Gervais does have close ties to Netflix. He made several highly divisive stand-up comedy specials for the streaming service, with the next, Mortality, due to be filmed on his forthcoming tour for release in 2025.
