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. 

Box Office

The budget of this movie was $25m. In the UK this would be a very high budget film. However, in the US it would be mid-budget. The distributers pay for many things such as the trailers being seen, the cardboard cut outs at the cinema. Working Title is a subsidiary. You can have:                                                                                                                         

•        Indie, not owned by anyone                                                                                                                    
•        Subsidiary, owned by a bigger company
•        Conglomerate/parent, are the big company, own other companies.                                                           

Working title are a subsidiary of NBC Universal, who are owned by Comcast. NBC also own Universal Pictures.

Big Six are the biggest Hollywood production companies that dominate cinema industries worldwide. These are the Big 6:

1. Disney
2. Warner Bros. Pictures
3. 20th Century Fox
4. Paramount Pictures
5. Universal Pictures
6. Sony Pictures Entertainment

Recently, because of Lionsgate’s success, there is talk that it should be included, and it should become the Big Seven.

Studio canal are an originally French company, who have a part called Studio Canal UK               (Optimum Releasing). 

Even Warp cannot help being caught up in the Big Six as studio canal and optimum releasing have worked on distribution and production for various Warp films.

Films budgeted at 100 million plus, are known as tentpole films. Bigger companies are spending more money on tentpole films and creating less other films. All the big six have applied the strategy of vertical integration. Which means that within the one conglomerate, they all have production companies, distribution companies and some means of exhibition. This essentially means that they create everything themselves.

Warp almost always is a 15/18 rating.  Recent Warp film, called ’17 was given a 15 which is low for Warp.

Working Title, over and over again use big, American stars, which is a large part of their budget.

The worldwide box office for BJD was $281m.

The US share of this revenue, was 25%. For a long time, the US revenue for UK films has been around 50%. This is why there are such harsh stereotypes, and representations in Working Title films, to appeal to an American audience and to be recognisable to Americans.

The Chinese market is growing bigger and bigger and will almost surely become the largest market. The American market is decreasing. The British market is tweaking what they do in order to fit the American market and the American market is tweaking what they do in order to fit the Chinese market.

Rom-coms are half romantic, in order to appeal to the female audience, and half comedy, to appeal to the male audience.

The UK made $60m on Bridget Jones’s Diary. The Gant rule argues that if a film is a hit in Britain, it will make 10x more money in America, and be shown on 10x more screens.

Bridget Jones’s Diary made so much money in Britain because of the fact that it’s a British production. As well as the UK got distributed in 15 different companies. After this, they were taken over by Universal.

Everest was distributed in 65 different companies worldwide, which is the benefit of being owned by such a large company. Its global total was $200 million, but will probably increase as its still being shown.

Mickybo and me was a film set in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which had a budget of £5m by WT2.

’71 is a film by Warp which is their highest budgeted film ever. (£5m) Before that it was a film which was £2.5m, and before that “This is England” (£1.5m).

In ’71 the social realist genre was established by the shaky camera movement. Also the main character is an orphan, its set with a lot of violence, and has political aspects to it. According to 

Box Office Mojo, it grossed only $1.6m. However, it won many awards. ’71 was distributed in 10 different countries, UK included.

This is England grossed $8m worldwide. This is the highest warp film.

NBC is one of the main American TV companies.     

Vertical integration is a business strategy. This goes:

• Production
• Distribution
• Exhibition