To do this I will need to survey attendance figures, highest grossing British films as opposed to Hollywood ‘movies’ over the decade and other relevant information. Therefore, using statistics from the British Film Institute, such as audience figures over the last century and the top ten films of all time, I can begin to observe how Britain has suffered at the hands of Hollywood.
To begin with, perhaps the most apparent factor we need to look at is the highest grossing films (at the UK box office) of all time, as suggested by the BFI. Subsequently how many of these are from Hollywood, or similarly from Britain. In fact, 30% of the ‘top ten’ list has strong British involvement. These films being ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ (Chris Columbus, 2002), ‘The Full Monty’ (Peter Cattaneo, 1997) and Bridget Jones’ Diary’, all three of which were given significant help from Hollywood. This then therefore takes away the classification of ‘British’ but as a joint venture. This begins to show the dominance of Hollywood, especially when we look at “Harry Potter” and ‘Bridget Jones’ Diary’.
‘Bridget Jones’ Diary’ is an example of how the decline of the British film industry has affected the casting. American actress, Renee Zellwegger, had to be trained to speak with a British accent to perform the title role of ‘Bridget’. This presents obvious evidence of a decline in the British film industry as the film had to add the expense of importing and training an American actress to star in a British film as opposed to simply using a British actress.
So without a doubt, the sheer idea that Britain’s film industry is following a successful path is embarrassingly quashed by these figures. For instance, ‘Titanic’ (James Cameron, 1997) is classed as the highest grossing film in the UK box office of all time. British actors/actresses aside, this film can only be classed as American. The funding (something in the region of $200 million, a figure way out of reach of the British industry), the production team, special effects, location and so on, have all originated from America. In addition, the fact that this film is based around a renowned and true British story, further dents the nation’s film industry for not producing the film before Hollywood.
Aptly named to describe the scale of its success, ‘Titanic’ won acclaim globally. This could be down to a number of factors such as the astronomical sum of money spent on the film, the incredible cinematography or perhaps most likely, its advanced special effects. The film, marketed largely on its realistic special effects drew millions to the cinema and subsequently made just under £70 million in Britain alone. So along with this idea of special effects we can begin to associate with other success stories.
Cinema attendance figures for the UK undoubtedly show a significant, upward trend from the slump of 1984 and this could perhaps present an argument in favour of the reinvigoration idea. However, returning to the point, American ‘special effects films’ have increased ten fold over the past twenty years and people are somewhat enticed by these. For instance, the recent film ‘Minority Report’ (Steven Spielberg, 2002) was marketed mainly on its special effects as the trailer pointed out quite obviously, and proved to be a success, both in Britain and the US. Grossing around $40 million, in the US alone (and still continuing to earn), perhaps not of ‘Titanic’ proportions, it still dwarfs British successes such as ‘Brassed Off’ which grossed in the region of $2.56 million in the US. Even then, ‘Brassed Off’ was greatly helped by American distribution. So this creates a very weak basis for argument in favour of the idea of reinvigorated British Cinema.
To further reinforce this point, along with ‘Minority Report’, films such as ‘Final Fantasy’ (the first film to use computer graphics to represent realism as opposed to cartoon-style graphics), ‘The Matrix’ (Larry and Andy Wachowski, 1999, a huge success globally) and ‘Jurassic Park’ (Steven Spielberg, 1993) all mainly owe their success to the high level of special effects used in them. Subsequently ‘Jurassic Park’ was listed 6th on the all time top ten films at the UK box office. Of course, their success could also be down to the director, actors or other factors, which draw people to the cinema, yet we see the overriding point that all of these ‘special effects successes’ are American.
‘Bend it Like Beckham’ (Gurinder Chadha, 2002) grossed £2 million in its first weekend.
I personally think that if Britain’s film industry is to be ‘reinvigorated’ it needs to take on the American approach, namely large-scale funding, marketing and distribution of films. America produces numerous films every year, some of which fail, expected as not all films are successful. This may be seen as a gamble, yet Hollywood continuously remains financially sound and scoops immense profits annually. So this idea may be gambling with British taxpayer’s money but in the long run profits can begin to heighten. So unless these techniques are taken on board, this country cannot even begin to compare with the US, even in the foreseeable future.
