In the 1990s, the town of Sheffield was destitute after the local industry closed one factory after another, leaving them with no way to earn a living. In this context, six workers tried to get out of financial trouble with an initiative as original as it was commented on by the community: to form a male striptease group for the entertainment of women who were looking for fun. The result? A cinematic surprise like Full Monty which, now that it is about to celebrate 26 years since its premiere on the billboard, is preparing to return with a television series.
The project was announced in March 2021 when the American channel FX announced that it would produce a sequel in the form of a miniseries, which can be seen on Disney. Aboard the new Full Monty is Simon Beaufoy, the film's screenwriter who was nominated for an Oscar for his work, and listed as creator, writer and executive producer; In the acting, Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy and Tom Wilkinson also return, who played Gaz, Dave and Gerald in the film, and Lesley Sharp as Jean, Paul Barber as Horse, Steve Huison as Lomper or Wim Snape as Nathan.
Through eight 60-minute episodes, Full Monty will tell the story of the same citizens in Sheffield, whose health and education systems are in serious crisis and unemployment is once again affecting the population. How do they face the economic situation of the twenties of this century? Among the new additions will be Talitha Wing as Destiny, Gaz's teenage daughter, or Tupele Dorgu, the girl's mother.
Beaufoy, for the moment, has explained that one of the great joys of his career as a screenwriter was "bringing together this eccentric and crazy family of men and women from Sheffield and seeing how 25 years, seven prime ministers and a hundred unfulfilled political problems have affected their lives." lives". This time he also has Alice Nutter (Accused) sharing the tasks of creation, script and executive production.
The success of Full Monty, at a historical level, is often made invisible by the mammoth phenomenon represented by James Cameron's Titanic, a film with which he competed for the Oscars. But, both commercially and critically, the British film had a meteoric run with 258 million dollars collected from a tiny budget of 3.5 million, establishing itself as the sleeper film of 1997, the one that obtains the favor of the public through word of mouth.
It won the Bafta for Best Picture and at the Oscars it competed in the Best Picture category against Titanic, L.A. Confidential, Better...impossible and Good Will Hunting. In Hollywood, for the record, he had to settle for the statuette for best comedy soundtrack, composed by Anne Dudley, when the film academy still differentiated between drama and comedy on a musical level (and, of course, Howard Shore took the prize). Oscar for Drama Score for his work on Titanic).
With his return to the screen, this time on television, the legacy of Full Monty will be put to the test. Does your interest in him continue after a quarter of a century?
