Simon Pegg knows How To Lose Friends

It’s clearly a good time for fictional versions of bigwig publishing – The Devil Wears Prada, with its pot-shots at Vogue Editor Anna Wintour has been a big hit in the US and now Vanity Fair is in the sights of Hollywood, with overlord Graydon Carter featuring heavily – albeit in thinly disguised, renamed form in How To Lose Friends & Alienate People.

You’ll recognise the title as Toby Young’s comic memoir of his time spent as contributing editor at the magazine. And now Hot Fuzz star Simon Pegg has signed up to play the ambitious – but inept – Young in an adaptation of the book.

Because there are legal issues all over the shop, the names have been changed (VF becomes Sharps Magazine, Carter becomes Clayton Harding), but the target is still clear and the stabs at the self-importance of the mag will still be felt.

Behind the camera is Robert Weide, a man known for bringing the funny on Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, while Peter Straughan (who wrote upcoming comedy World Cup memoir Sixty Six) is on scribbling duties. The plan is to shoot in New York and here in Blighty early next year.