We revealed a few weeks ago that the always-excellent actor Paddy Considine had received funding from the UK Film Council for his directorial debut, “The Journeymen.” Considine won a BAFTA for his short film “Dog Altogether” in 2008, and yesterday brought the news that a feature version of that film will actually be Considine’s first film as director, as it received £150,000 from the East Midlands film fund.
Entitled “Tyrannosaur,” the project is, according to Ion Cinema (via SlashFilm), an expansion of “Dog Altogether,” which starred Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman (“Hot Fuzz”), and followed the relationship between a violence-fuelled man in search of redemption, and a woman who works in a Christian charity shop. The feature version develops their relationship further, revealing that Amanda, Colman’s character, has a secret, which has a devastating effect on the pair. Both actors are reprising their roles, and the great Eddie Marsan has also joined the cast, as Amanda’s husband. With funding from EM Media and Screen Yorkshire, we imagine it’s moved from its original Glasgow setting.
There’s some serious muscle behind Considine’s film, and we can easily see this being a gritty, personal debut in the vein of Gary Oldman’s “Nil By Mouth” or Tim Roth’s “The War Zone.” The only problem is that, with a second film, “The Journeymen,” already in development and Considine saying “I have about four films that I want to make immediately. If this works out okay I’ll just keep it going, provided I can get them financed,” it may be a long time before we see the great actor on screen again.
