Rise of Olympic boxer Harry Mallin the subject of new film The Wilderness

Boxer Harry Mallin, the subject of Alexandra Boyd's film The Wilderness

A club of Old Etonians help some promising East End boys to realise their boxing potential. Sweat, blood and drama ensue, and our Hackney hero swoops to Olympic gold – twice. This is the true story of champion middleweight boxer Harry Mallin, assisted by Old Etonian Arthur Villiers, and it is now being brought to the big screen.

The film’s producer Jon Pettigrew found out about the Eton Manor Boys’ club while he was on the Olympics organising committee, and joined forces with writer and director Alexandra Boyd. The film will be entitled The Wilderness, an old nickname for Hackney Marshes.

This is Boyd’s first foray into feature film directing after a long career as an actress with credits including Coronation Street and Titanic. Now 50, Boyd has found that her acting experience is relevant to the project. “Boxing is very similar to acting,” she says. “They put on a performance, they have to be focused. They have to prepare their voices and their bodies for the opening night, but for boxing you only get one chance.”

The team has researched the story and setting meticulously. Boyd interviewed boxers who were trained by Harry Mallin and who knew Villiers, as well as boxing champions Lennox Lewis, Barry McGuigan and Nicky Gargano, and World War One historians. The Marshes and the surrounding area have changed too much to film on location, so shooting will take place at either Pinewood or Leavesden Studios.

Boyd acknowledges that the subjects of war and boxing are “usually male-dominated territories”, but is confident this has been changing, citing directors such as Kathryn Bigelow. She also has a sounding board in the form of a Hollywood producer friend, who promises to stop the film becoming “too sentimental”. With dramatic fight sequences, slow-motion close-ups highlighting the physicality of boxing, and a focus on what goes on inside the characters’ minds, Boyd is aiming for epic – “boxing’s Chariots of Fire”.

The next step is the Cannes Film Festival in May, where Boyd and Pettigrew will pitch their idea to distributors, sales agents and financiers in order to raise funds. The shooting will start this spring, with a prospective release date of Remembrance Day 2014.