From Wagatha Christie to the Covid scandal, our screens have been awash with all-too-recent retellings over the past few years. The latest is Scoop, a dramatised take on Prince Andrew's car crash Newsnight interview, which happened – close your eyes and cast your minds back, now – towards the end of 2019.
As you’ll remember, the ill-advised Prince agreed to a grilling with the BBC's Emily Maitlis in a bid to distance himself from the late paedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, as well as deny accusations posed by Virginia Giuffre, who alleged that she had been coerced into having sex with Andrew when she was just 17-years-old. As way of an alibi, the flustered royal memorably claimed he was in the Woking branch of Pizza Express on the night he was meant to have been with her, and bizarrely suggested he could no longer sweat due to his experiences in the Falklands war.
Following the interview – in which he has repeatedly said he has “no recollection” of meeting Giuffre – the royal then paid her an out-of-court financial settlement, accepting no liability. But these things have a pesky habit of never truly disappearing, and now, once again, popular culture will return to the story with writer Peter Moffat’s own take on proceedings.
When is Scoop out?
The first look images dropped on February 5, but Netflix is currently still staying tight-lipped about the film’s release, other than it’ll be later in 2024.
Who’s in Scoop?
As you can peep from the stills from set, there’s a pretty formidable cast. Fresh from playing Margaret Thatcher in The Crown, Gillian Anderson has signed up to play Maitlis. The actor brave enough to step into Prince Andrew’s shoes is Rufus Sewell, who apparently needed three hours in the make-up chair to attain the scarily realistic depiction of the royal.
The film will also feature Billie Piper as Newsnight producer Sam McAlister, Keeley Hawes as Prince Andrew's former private secretary, Amanda Thirsk, and Romola Garai as Esme Wren, who led Newsnight at the time of the interview.
What else should we know about Scoop?
The film is based on the former Newsnight producer McAlister’s 2022 non-fiction book, Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC's Most Shocking Interviews. When news of the film dropped back in February 2023, McAlister wrote on X: “Thrilled that my book #Scoops is becoming a Netflix film, with an extraordinary cast. Being played by @billiepiper is beyond my wildest dreams.”
Director Philip Martin told Netflix Tudum a bit more about what to expect: “Uptempo, immersive and cinematic, I want to put the audience inside the breath-taking sequence of events that led to the interview with Prince Andrew – to tell a story about a search for answers, in a world of speculation and varying recollections. It’s a film about power, privilege and differing perspectives and how – whether in glittering palaces or hi-tech newsrooms – we judge what’s true.”
Scoop is also not the only production based on the whole affair – Amazon Prime Video are also getting in on the action with A Very Royal Scandal, a three-part series featuring Michael Sheen as Prince Andrew and Ruth Wilson as Maitlis. Jeremy Brock will be writing it with Julian Jarrold on directing duties.
Is there a trailer?
Not just yet, but as ever, we’ll be on hand with the scoop when it breaks.
