Release details
Director: Larry Charles
Release date: May 11 2012
Background information
Sacha Baron Cohen is to star in a film of Zabibah and the King, a romantic novel written by Iraqi dictator. The novel tells a tale of a wise and good Iraqi leader who falls in love with a humble peasant girl. Re-titled The Dictator, Cohen will be transforming the story from a romantic love story into a political comedy.
Zabibah and the King was published anonymously in 2000, complete with a strap-line that promised royalties would go “to the poor, the orphans, the miserable, the needy”. It is widely accepted within Iraq that the book was authored by Saddam, although the CIA later concluded that it was probably produced by ghost-writers, acting under direct instruction from the Iraqi leader.
Plot details – *Mild spoiler*
The Dictator heads to the U.S. for a meeting at the United Nations and finds that his number two has replaced him with an unsuspecting sheepherder lookalike. As the dictator wanders the city, he meets the owner of an organic food store who turns around his dictatorial thinking, and a romance blossoms between them.
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