Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason: A Typical Working Title Production?

This film is a sequel to Bridget Jones's Diary.

The film had an estimated budget of $40m and grossed $262m worldwide (box office). (UK $68m)

In the UK, this film was distributed by UIP, which is a joint between Paramount Pictures and Universal Studio

In the US it was distributed by Universal pictures.

It was distributed in 60 countries, including the US. Below are some of those countries:

The film poster show clear connotations of the Rom-Com genre, through the pink and purple colours (pink signifies love but they are also both very girly colours, therefore probably targeted towards the female demographic).There is also the handwritten font and arrows above the actors, which signifies the comedy genre. The fact that Renee Zellweger is in the central position on the poster (keeping to rule of thirds) not only shows that she is the central protagonist but also, she is very well-known in America and so she is being used to advertise the film and sell it to the American audience.

It could be said that this production is very typical of Working Title, firstly because it is a Rom-Com/ romance a genre which WT have produced many films in (e.g.. Love Actually, Notting Hill etc.) and also because it is very stereotypically British; set in London, southern English accents, higher class, which adds to the American image of Britain. This stereotypical view of England is portrayed in many other working title films (eg.The first shot of the trailer for The Theory of Everything, rural, typical English/British countryside, old building.)

British Cinema

This is England is a British drama film written and directed by Shane Meadows. The film won the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film at the 2007 British Academy Film Awards. It also won the Best Film category at the 2006 British Independent Film Awards. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 93% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 89 reviews.

Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 86/100, based on 23 reviews".

This made it the tenth best reviewed film of the year.
In the opening Weekend, it grossed:

$18k (USA) (29 July 2007)
£207,k (UK) (29 April 2007)

There was an estimated budget of £1.5m

The production companies involved were: Warp Films, Big Arty Productions, EM Media

A low budget (1.5m) was used in this film, which gives an indication about the film; it’s almost certainly an Indie film (not owned by a bigger company). Working title is a subsidiary of a bigger company. Means you can’t have stars as there is not enough money to pay them.

He did not want a higher budget as the higher the budget, the lower the creative control. More than half the budget came from the UK film council (government organisation). However it can go lower, Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee, also by Shane Meadows, had a budget of £48k.

The gant rule: If you have a film that’s a hit in the UK and one that’s a hit in the US, It will be shown on 10 times more screens in the US, and make 10 times more money than in the UK.

Working title use famous actors in almost all their movies, as this makes it viewable in more countries. American actors are often used because of this. Warp have not used any famous actors in their films.

5 months in America and gained £300k, however, its peak was only 14 screens at a time. For America, This is England was not at all a mainstream film. It was treated like an Arthouse film.

Working title reinforce the impression that English films must include areas such as London and middle class characters, unlike This is England.

This is England is a social realist film. They typical do not have stars or special effects, they are almost documentary like in style. This makes them a difficult sell.

UK distributers used Optimum Releasing (now studio canal, and not indie anymore) In the Us, it was distributed by IFC.

Box office: £2.1m for UK, $330k for US, and Worldwide £5.1m.