Optimum founder Will Clarke, former Exclusive Media managing director Andy Mayson and former Pathé International exec Mike Runagall have jointly created UK-based Altitude Film Entertainment

The first partnerships are with directors James Watkins (Eden Lake, The Woman In Black), Owen Harris (Holy Flying Circus) and Ben Craig (Modern Times) along with playwright Matt Charman and producer Gregor Cameron.

With Watkins, Altitude is developing The Loch, a terrifying, bold new take on the Loch Ness monster myth, which Watkins is co-writing with first-time filmmaker Simon Duric.

Altitude is also teaming with Cameron and Harris to make Kill Your Friends, set in the Britpop era of the late 90s and based on John Niven’s novel. Details on his novel can be read below, although, I can’t stop thinking about how badly I want to see a good Loch Ness movie.

“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’.

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.“