Case Study

G322 Key Media Concepts (TV

Drama)
Section B: Institutions and
Audiences
 UK films aimed at an international audience
 Traditional UK film genres
 History of Working Title mirrors the history
of the UK film industry
 Increasingly typical UK film funding – co-
productions with British TV companies and
Hollywood studios
 "Brit flick's twin towers of power"

 Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan have achieved

the near impossible
 They’ve created a wildly successful production
company in a country where the film business
is subject to repeated predictions of imminent
doom.
Eric Fellner Tim Bevan
 Working Title Films began life co-producing the short film
The Man Who Shot Christmas (1984).
 This led to their first film for Channel Four and the first of
many landmark Working Title Films - My Beautiful
Laundrette (1985) Directed by Stephen Frears.

 In 2009 still the most successful British film production

company ever.

“Their films have grossed more than £1.2 billion

Since 1984, and that is a conservative estimate.”
My Beautiful Laundrette (1984)
A groundbreaking script by Hanif Kureishi co-
produced with Channel 4, fitting their remit of
offering challenging work that would not find a
home elsewhere on television or in UK cinema.
The story revolves around the relationship
between a right-wing extremist, Johnny (Daniel
Day Lewis) and Omar (Gordon Wemecke), the
Pakistani nephew of an archetypal Pakistani
entrepreneur Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey), who are
brought together in revamping a run-down
laundrette.

Frears offers a critique of the Thatcherite work

ethic and the entrepreneur society, showing a
white underclass declining under the
With interracial homosexuality to
the fore it is not surprising that
determination of new immigrant businesses.
this film caused a considerable
stir in a society that was suffering
the consequences of political and Made for $400,000 it took
economic revolution that had as over $2.5 in the US alone.
its creed "there is no such thing
as society”.
The success of their first three films, which all dealt with British subjects,
alerted the wider film industry to this independent production company,
leading first to a international co-productions in 1988 including their first
Anglo-American production For Queen and Country (starring a youthful
Denzel Washington!).
The success of this film on both sides of the Atlantic gave Working Title
a template for co-production that they immediately began to exploit,
and one that has been the aspiration for most other British independent
production companies since.
The Working Title Movie Template
 British Film + American star = $$$$$
 Appeal to international market (& success for
the British Film Industry)

 This approach has provoked much criticism about

the ‘mid-Atlantic’ nature of the films.
Why UK/US Co-productions?
According to Bevan: "Before co-productions we had been
independent producers, but it was very hand to mouth. We
would develop a script, that would take about 5% of our
time; we'd find a director, that'd take about 5% of the time
and then we'd spend 90% of the time trying to juggle
together deals from different sources to finance those
films. The films were suffering because there was no real
structure and the company was always virtually bankrupt."
 The British film
industry dilemma:
Do you:

A) Make culturally specific films which appeal to a national audience?

OR

B) Make broader, generic films with an international appeal?

? ?
 The British film
industry dilemma:
 Working Title want to make European films
for a worldwide audience.
 They want to imbue them with European ideas
and influences and they can’t do these things
without the backing of a major Hollywood
studio.

"I think anyone in Hollywood would want

to do business with these guys,"
Former boss of Universal Studios Edgar Bronfman Jr.
 A HISTORY:
1984 - Working Title founded
1985 - My Beautiful Laundrette is the first
of a series of collaborations with Channel
4 Films
Working Title produce a further 10 films
in the 1980s
1988 - Production deal with PolyGram
Filmed Entertainment
1992 - PolyGram (a European music and
media company) buys Working Title.
1994 - Four Weddings and a Funeral
A huge box office success due to the
access to the US market provided by
Polygram’s financial muscle

Made for $6 million it took

over $244 million worldwide.

Working Title produces 41 films in the

1990s
1998 - Polygram bought by Universal a
Hollywood Studio itself owned by Seagram

The financial stability offered by the support from a

major studio allowed Working Title to move rapidly
on to the international stage, and PolyGram being
taken over by Seagram and subsumed into its film
arm, Universal Pictures, in 1999, further
strengthened this.
A marked change of direction took place at this
point, with the traditionally provincial independent
territory being scorned in favour of international
prospects.
Working Title
is now owned by
2000 - Seagram is bought by Vivendi, the
Universal,
French multimedia
conglomerate which is in turn owned by
Vivendi
The international activity did not prevent Working Title from continuing to support
British filmmakers and from engaging in what would have been considered
traditional 'independent' Anglo-European co-productions such as Ken Loach’s Land
and Freedom (1995) and 'offbeat' Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz
(2007).
 So what is a
Working Title film?
This was once relatively easy to answer, as the films they first made all seemed
to address issues of what it is to be British (or, more specifically, English), and
particularly what it meant to be an outsider – like the immigrants in My
Beautiful Laundrette.
Of course, the general public know them as the
re-inventors of a British romantic comedy
genre through Four Weddings and a Funeral,
Notting Hill (1999) and Love Actually (2003)
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
This was the first Working Title collaborations
with Richard Curtis (who’d achieved fame with
the Blackadder TV series) and Hugh Grant and
it set the bar for British film production,
particularly in its use of soundtrack that spawned
a record-breaking number one single.

A rom-com that explores the relationships

between a group of upper-class friends as they
meet to celebrate and mourn. Curtis was able to
bring established contacts to an ensemble cast
(such as Rowan Atkinson), enhancing the
potential connection with the home audience

The film was a massive hit in the USA, in part because of the view 'heritage
Britain' - a land of churches, old pubs and stately homes populated by 'classy'
English people with obligatory bumbling fools sprinkled across the social landscape.
It also helped that one of the stars American (Andie MacDowell).
Such an unexpected success gave Working Title international clout and reach, and
placed it at the centre of the Hollywood. It also placed considerable pressure on the
company to become the romantic-comedy-heritage-film company, a pressure it
resisted, but did not reject, realizing that a popular film could help support a number
of productions with less potential for such success yet still deserving of being made.

A quick glance at the list of films in its catalogue reveals a list of over 100 films
produced since 1984 - probably the only common thread among them is the desire to
do something different to what is being produced at the time, and to do it well. It is the
ability to make films for specific audience groups, and to not be pigeon-holed that
has enabled the company to ensure that its work remains fresh and successful.
 So what is a
Working Title film?
It is easy to categorize them (dismissively) until you look through the catalogue and
realize that this is a company categorized only by diversity and the ability to
detect changes in the market that enable a reorientation of direction

There is no other British Film Company like

Working Title - it is allowed freedom to
make creative decisions but it is owned by
a US based conglomerate.

How do Working Title choose which films to make? Fellner says “projects get
championed by individuals in the development department and these
'percolate' their way up to the top. Tim Bevan and I then both take the
decision on what to greenlight.”
 Working Title and
Co-production
Co-production has long been a method of sharing risk within the film industry,
and when Working Title began its life, co-production was merely another
revenue stream that often involved pre-sale or pre-distribution deals on world or
national rights. Since one of Working Title’s principal partners was Channel
Four, and Channel Four pioneered international co-production in the UK, it is no
surprise that Working Title adopted and extended the model.

Initially, Working Title explored these deals domestically,

but as its success grew it found that the international
market opened up to it.

Working Title took co-production further when formalizing their relationship with
PolyGram (later Universal) where US investment of 30% did not prevent them
from obtaining EU/UK tax advantages. A 30% stake in the budget + Hollywood
support clearly stimulates other investors willingness to get involved in a film. It is
this advance in the model that radically enhanced the production processes and
values in Working Title films.
 How does it work?
“The Working Title philosophy has always been to
make films for an audience - by that I mean play in a
multiplex. We totally believe in this because we
know it is the only hope we have of sustaining the
UK film industry.”
Despite its famous name, the structure at Working Title is small. It employs just 42
full time staff, split between the main Working Title production arm and its recently
closed low-budget offshoot WT2 under Natasha Wharton.

“When I was at Working Title we set up a New

Writers Scheme to develop new talent. The
problem was that at Working Title, smaller films
would inevitably get less attention than the bigger
budget projects so we decided to set up WT2 to
give proper attention to those smaller films.”

2007 - Why did WT2 close down?

 Does it always
work?
Film Year Budget (est) Worldwide Gross
(est)
Billy Eliot 2000 $5 million $109.3 million

Long Time Dead 2002 $2 million $2 million

Ali G Indahouse 2002 $5 million $12 million

My Little Eye 2002 $2-3 million $3 million

Shaun of the Dead 2004 $4 million $30 million

The Calcium Kid 2004 $5 million £61,415

MickyBo and Me 2004 $3 million £172,336

Inside I’m Dancing 2004 $5 million $500,000

Sixty Six 2006 $3 million $1.9 million

 How does it work?
The most important part of the business is developing scripts. Working Title has a
strong development team and invests heavily in making sure that they get it right.
They usually have around 40 - 50 projects in development at any time and their
average spend on development is around $250,000 to $500,000 per script.

They aim to make around 5 to 10 films a year, spread across

different budget sizes (with an average of $30 to $40 million) and
genres.

Released in 2009/10 are 10 films including the Richard Curtis comedy The
Boat That Rocked, political thriller State of Play based on the successful
BBC television drama but re-imagined in Washington and Green Zone, an
Iraq war thriller that reunites the Bourne series star Matt Damon and director
Paul Greengrass.
 Trouble ahead?
Film Year Budget (est) Worldwide Gross
(est)
The Boat That Rocked 2009 $50 million $36.3 million

State of Play 2009 $60 million $87.8 million

The Soloist 2009 $60 million $37.6 million

A Serious Man 2009 $7 million $26.2 million

Green Zone 2010 $100 million $86.4 million

As you can see, not all of their films have been unqualified successes - as one
would expect in the movie industry. Earlier flops include Captain Corelli's
Mandolin (2001). It was their most expensive film to date, with a budget of $57
million and, ironically, the one that seemed most likely to succeed. Adapted from
the popular book of the same name, with an all-star cast, it still managed to
disappoint with the critics and at the box office making only $62 million worldwide.
 Does it always
work?

 Released in the UK on April 1st 2009

 Budget of $50 million
 Richard Curtis romantic comedies have traditionally done very well
at the box office
 Typical Working Title co-production with Universal and Canal+
 Familiar Working Title faces and some up-and-coming talent
 Famous US star
 Traditional marketing campaign with synergistic merchandising and
tie-ins – soundtrack released on Mercury Records owned by
Universal…
 Increasingly traditional digital marketing strategies…
 Large scale release - 400+ screens in UK
 Medium scale release in US – 800+ screens
 It died in the UK yet it still did quite well in the US
 We’ll look at why?
Teaser Poster & trailer…
Main Poster & trailer…
Character posters…
Here’s our Working Title
famous US star…
Soundtrack synergy…
Digital marketing – the film used Spotify to create playlists for each of the 9 DJs
featured in the film. For example Dave, played by Nick Frost...
iPhone app…
Something viral…

The reviews weren’t great…
Richard Curtis‘s The Boat That Rocked
sloshes about merrily and has some
magical moments…overlong, muddled
and only fitfully brilliant. Daily
Telegraph ***
‘The Ship That Sank’ would be a more
appropriate title for Richard Curtis’s latest
and most disappointing entertainment.
Time Out **
Why did it ‘sink’ at
the box office?
Richard Curtis takes the complex,
fascinating subject of 60s pirate radio
and turns it into infantalised farce.
The Guardian
Curtis’s new film is a love letter
to the music and rebellious spirit
of the 1960s. He has given us
what he imagines to be the
era’s cocktail of sex, drugs and
rock’n’roll — but he’s turned it
into something as cosy and
comforting as a sweet cup of
tea. The Times **

Terrible reviews tend to turn into terrible

word of mouth…
 Why did it ‘sink’ at
the box office?

Social recommendation is key - a

personal recommendation from a friend,
colleague or relative can be the most
powerful trigger for a cinema visit. Pre-
requisite for favourable 'word of mouth'
are high levels of awareness and strong
interest. Negative word of mouth is
extremely difficult to overcome. Post-
release, hopefully, a combination of good
word of mouth and further advertising will
combine to give the film 'legs'.

Remember - the percentage of
box office that comes from the
opening weekend has increased
from 15.7% in the 80s to 33.1%
today…
Why did it ‘sink’ at
the box office?
It got a different
name in the US…?
Last Friday saw the U.S. release of the film
Pirate Radio. During the 7 month delay in its
arrival on these shores both DVD and Blu-Ray
versions of the film came out in non-American
markets, ensuring that U.S. viewers would
have access via the Internet to copies. In fact,
a cam version debuted on Piratebay soon
after theatrical release, with DVD and Blu-Ray
rips appearing in mid-August, eminently
available to anybody around the world with an
Internet connection.
How did this affect it’s opening weekend
in America?
 Why didn’t it ‘sink’
at the US box
office?
While its gross intake was relatively modest, at just under $3 million (over 800+
cinemas) Pirate Radio actually did very well on a per-cinema average which put it
in third place among films in wide-release for the weekend. 
While it is impossible to know with any real certainty what impact downloads of the
DVD or Blu-Ray rips may have had on Pirate Radio’s box office, the film appears
to have done pretty well, especially considering its foreign origin, subject matter and
rather middling reviews (54% on the Rotten Tomato scale).
Somehow the forces behind the movie found a way to ‘compete with free’ and
position it to be profitable in the US, even before its inevitable DVD and Blu-Ray
releases there.

Maybe the existence of free versions on the Internet did less to drive down demand
for the film, but instead fostered awareness and interest in the movie above and
beyond what the producers were able to do via PR and advertising?
Despite being a very successful business model over the past 25 years Working
Title have had a series of flops that would have ‘sunk’ a UK film company that
lacked the backing of a Hollywood studio.
Despite making films with tried and trusted talent in recent years (Richard
Curtis, Matt Damon) box office has not been great.
How do you think Working Title can be successful again?

http://www.launchingfilms.tv/index.php

http://filminfocus.com/focusfeatures/film/pirate_radio/
http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/
http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/film.php?filmID=120

http://www.filmeducation.org/theboatthatrocked/activity3.html

http://benjaminwigmore.blogspot.com/2009/04/boat-that-rocked.html