Andrea Arnold, Paddy Considine and Shane Meadows lead Film4 slate

Film4’s current development slate includes the new films from Andrea Arnold, Paddy Considine and Shane Meadows as well as collaborations with Shame and The King’s Speech producers See Saw; Debbie Tucker Green’s debut Second Coming, starring Idris Elba; and the next Film4.0 film, a drama documentary about Nick Cave.

The broadcaster’s impressive slate highlights its ongoing commitment to a range of UK talent, from fledgling directors to established auteurs.

“The idea is that we’re developing authorship in the film world,” said Film4 head Tessa Ross, of the company’s diverse slate.

Arnold’s US-set drama Mag Crew, inspired by teenage magazine sales crews, is being co-developed with Focus Features and is likely to shoot in the US next year. The director researched the crews recently in the US and is now in the UK writing the script.

Shoot on Debbie Tucker Green’s debut Second Coming, starring Nadine Marshall and Idris Elba, is already underway while Adam Smith’s narrative feature Trespass Against Us, about a father-son relationship in a unique traveller community, is being executive produced by Gail Egan and is likely to shoot in 2014.

Considine’s “big one”

Tyrannosaur director Paddy Considine has adapted and will direct The Years of the Locust, writer Jon Hotten’s account of match-fixing and murder in the 1980s Florida boxing world.

Slated to shoot in early 2014, the production is likely to include US partners.

Katherine Butler, Film4’s deputy head, said: “This is the big scale one that [Considine] wants to do, boxing is his passion.” Tyrannosaur producer Diarmid Scrimshaw is again producing.

Meadows’ cyclist biopic

Shane Meadows’ Tommy Simpson, a biopic of Nottinghamshire cyclist Tommy Simpson who died of exhaustion during the 1967 Tour de France, is at script stage. Warp Films will produce.

David Greig’s adaptation of his acclaimed play Midsummer will be directed by Owen Harris in his feature directorial debut. The romantic comedy-musical follows two people in their mid-30s who meet in Edinburgh and fall in love.

With See-Saw’s Canning, Film4 is developing recently announced Cannes buzz script Macbeth, set to star Michael Fassbender and Natalie Portman, and western Slow West - a co-production with Conor McCaughan’s DMC Film - from Pitch Black Heist writer-director John Maclean, which also has Fassbender’s interest and is tentatively scheduled to shoot in New Zealand and the UK at the end of the year.

Film4.0

The next film on the Film4.0 slate after Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England is documentary 20,000 Days on Earth.

Already shooting, the doc explores “creativity and man’s fight against time” through Nick Cave’s 20,000th day on Earth.

“It’s a love letter to creativity and a portrait of the man behind the myth,” says Film4.0’s Anna Higgs.

Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard will direct with James Wilson and Dan Bowen producing and Pulse Films executive-producing.

Macdonald’s sub thriller

As recently reported, Film4 is backing Kevin Macdonald’s submarine thriller Black Sea, written by Denis Kelly, with Jude Law in talks to star as a submarine captain in search of a sunken vessel reputed to be loaded with gold.

Film4 is also backing Mike Leigh’s Turner (now shooting); Lone Scherfig’s Posh; Gerard Johnson’s Hyena; Ben Wheatley’s Freakshift (partnering with Lava Bear in the US); and Yann Demange’s 71, which is shooting now.

In addition, the broadcaster is working on Peter Strickland’s previously announced next film The Duke of Burgundy, which will see the director return to Hungary, where he shot the well-received Katalin Varga.

It will also back Ken Loach’s Ireland-set Jimmy’s Hall, which will shoot this summer.

Cannes

The slate was announced at Film4’s annual pre-Cannes event in London.

The company has three films in Cannes this year: Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant; Paul Wright’s For Those In Peril; and the Channel 4-backed A Story of Children and Film by Mark Cousins.