Paddy Considine plans boxing movie

Paddy Considine has confirmed he is adapting the book The Year of the Locust, the true-life tale of a journeyman boxer and ultra-shady promoter whose efforts to make their way in the fight game of the early 1990s ended in murder.

Considine, who last year made his directing debut on the BIFA-winning drama Tyrannosaur, confirmed his involvement backstage at the Baftas.

Jon Hotten, author of The Year of the Locust, said on his blog last year that Considine had bought the film rights.

Hotten's book examines the morally dubious foray into professional boxing of Florida door-to-door salesman turned boxing promoter Rick "Elvis" Parker, who ended up in a mortuary, and his doomed relationship with journeyman heavyweight Tim "Doc" Anderson, who wound up serving life without parole in a state prison for murder.

Parker had allegedly staged an elaborate plan to secure a huge payday for his boxer Mark Gastineau against former heavyweight champion George Foreman, who was at that point staging a comeback, by fixing a number of fights.

The scheme came unstuck when Anderson refused to take a dive in a 1991 match-up between the two and delivered a severe beating to Gastineau, a former NFL player whom Parker had cunningly billed as the next "great white hope" of US boxing.

Later during a rematch which took place against the backdrop of official investigations into match-fixing by Parker the following year, Anderson fell ill and was knocked out in the sixth round.

Anderson subsequently accused Parker of poisoning him and murdered the latter with a shotgun following a confrontation.

According to his website, Considine is also eyeing a BBC drama about a girl dying of leukaemia, Now is Good, and a ghost story about family secrets and legacies titled The Leaning, for his next project behind the cameras.