Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope reunite on new script

“It’s something that Steve is going to write with Jeff Pope, that we are developing with BBC Films. It’s an original idea that Steve has had and he and Jeff are going to write that. It’s a drama with a comic quality, set in the UK,” London-based producer Gabrielle Tana told Screen, adding that she has a number of other projects she’s developing with Coogan’s Baby Cow.

Coogan and Pope won the best screenplay prize in Venice last night for their work on Philomena, which is directed by Stephen Frears.

Of Coogan’s years of championing the development of Philomena, Tana notes: “I think it proves that he’s capable of being much more than a funny guy and when we set out on this journey that was the desired effect…he has been pigeon-holed and I think he can do other things and this shows that.”

After producing Ralph Fiennes’ Coriolanus and now The Invisible Woman, she is also developing a number of early-stage projects with him.

Her company Magnolia Mae, based in London and New York with partner Carolyn Marks Blackwood, is gearing up for a 2014 shoot for The Dig, working with BBC Films and Clerkenwell Films. “It’s a period drama, set just before the Second World War in the 1930s,” Tana explains. No director is attached yet but Tana reports “a lot of interest.”

Pathe sells Philomena and WestEnd Films represents The Invisible Woman.

For more of the interview with Tana, click here.