Russian "Office" Assures Gervais' Global Domination

The BBC has sold the rights to the original Office series to Russia's Channel One. Given the laugh-a-minute nature of Russian culture,
the country that gave us Dostoyevsky and Siberia should be ready to laugh at the antics of the working drones at Wernham Hogg.

Channel One plans to extend the series to 24 episodes. There will be some necessary changes to make the format fit the newly resurgent economic powerhouse that is Russia:

• Wernham Hogg will be changed into a natural gas company, owned at first  by a foreign country but later nationalize. David Brent will be an oligarch who lobbies for political change, is forced to leave the country and is poisoned by radioactive chemicals while living abroad.

• Russia joins a number of other nations cataloging daily workplace antics, including France, Canada, the US, Brazil, Chile and Germany. There may be plans for an Office set in Vietnam, but that will require finding a cast of child actors.

[via AFP]