‘The Inbetweeners’ Movie Sequel Confirmed

LONDON – Good news for fans of bawdy, youthful British comedy: a sequel to the 2011 U.K. box office smash hit The Inbetweeners is coming.

Creators Iain Morris and Damon Beesley ended rumblings on Aug. 2 about the prospects for a follow-up for their merry gang of school leaver characters.

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The sequel to the U.K.’s most successful comedy film of all time — it was made for $5.5 million and laughed its way to $71 million at the U.K. box office alone — will shoot later this year.

The first movie followed four hapless teenage school leavers who go on vacation together to Crete, finding themselves in various scrapes with locals, alcohol and romantic entanglements.

Morris and Beesley said the sequel will reunite the four reckless teenagers, Jay (James Buckley), Neil (Blake Harrison), Simon (Joe Thomas) and Will (Simon Bird).

The creators, in a joint statement, said: “Frankly, it’s pathetic how much we’ve all missed each other. A new chapter in the lives of The Inbetweeners feels like the very least we can do to thank the fans for their phenomenal response to the first movie.”

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The sequel will be produced by Bwark Productions, who will co-finance with Channel 4, and its movie-making arm Film4.

Bwark is a Zodiak Media Company and Zodiak Rights are the international sales agent.

Entertainment Film Distributors will distribute the film in the U.K., hoping for the same level of success it enjoyed with the first film.

Having started life on Channel 4’s youth-orientated channel E4 as a TV show, the movie version, fully financed by Channel 4, ended up being the U.K.’s third highest grossing film in 2011, slightly behind The King’s Speech at $71.7 million, and the out-of-sight top draw, Harry Potter And The Dealthly Hallows: Part 2, which took $114.7 million.