Woman in Black director James Watkins developing Kill Your Friends and The Loch

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Fresh off the international success of THE WOMAN IN BLACK, director James Watkins has partnered with British producer Will Clarke on Altitude Film Entertainment, a production company that has already set up a couple of intriguing projects.

The Altitude team will kick start the plans with an adaptation of John Niven’s cult music industry darkly comic satirical novel KILL YOUR FRIENDS, from the author’s own script. Owen Harris will direct the bloody satire.

Here’s the synopsis for Niven’s novel:

Meet Steven Stelfox. London 1997: New Labour is sweeping into power and Britpop is at its zenith. Twenty-seven-year-old A&R man Stelfox is slashing and burning his way through the music industry, a world where ‘no one knows anything’ and where careers are made and broken by chance and the fickle tastes of the general public – ‘Yeah, those animals’.

Fuelled by greed and inhuman quantities of cocaine Stelfox blithely criss-crosses the globe searching for the next hit record amid a relentless orgy of self-gratification.

But as the hits dry up and the industry begins to change, Stelfox must take the notion of cutthroat business practices to murderous new levels in a desperate attempt to salvage his career.

Sounds like a British take on a Bret Easton Ellis story…

In addition, Altitude is working on THE LOCH billed as a terrifying, bold new take on the Loch Ness monster myth, which Watkins is co-writing with first-time filmmaker Simon Duric. No other details are available, but could be quite cool if done right; we’ve never really had a definitive take on old “Nessie.”

We’ll keep you up-to-date on these projects as they advance.