Chinese Version of The Office?

China will join a long list of countries who have bought The Office format from the BBC, the broadcasting company has announced. The U.S., Chile, France, Germany, Israel, and Quebec all have rights to their own versions of the hit British show. Gervais broke the news earlier this week on his blog, when he wrote, “We are about tho start work on a Chinese The Office. How cool is that?” But BBC Worldwide immediately told Associated Press that there was “no deal in place, no broadcaster, no production company.” Now they’ve admitted that Gervais was right: A BBC executive in Beijing is working with a New York-based film financier on a Mandarin version of the show.