Working Title Films a Creative and Commercial History
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NATHAN TOWNSEND WORKING TITLE FILMS A CREATIVE AND COMMERCIAL HISTORY Working Title Films For Leah Working Title Films A Creative and Commercial History Nathan Townsend Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting- edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © Nathan Townsend, 2021 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/13pt Garamond MT PRO by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 5193 2 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 5195 6 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 5196 3 (epub) The right of Nathan Townsend to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Contents List of Figures and Tables vi Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 1 Transatlantic British Cinema and the Political Economy of Film 11 2 The Independent Years: Hand-to-mouth Production and Social Art Cinema (1984–8) 42 3 The PolyGram Years Part I: Founding a Studio and Making a Subsidiary (1988–92) 68 4 The PolyGram Years Part II: Development, Green-lighting and Distribution (1993–8) 94 5 Swapping Studios: From PolyGram to Universal (1998–9) 124 6 The Universal Years Part I: Development, Green-lighting and Distribution (1999–2006) 138 7 The Universal Years Part II: Retrenchment and Reorientation (2007–12) 162 8 The Universal Years Part III: New Relationships (2012– ) 178 9 The Global Market for Working Title’s Films 198 10 Transatlantic British Cinema: Creative Risk, Commercial Risk and the Issue of Diversity 218 Bibliography 234 Filmography 244 Index 257 Figures and Tables FIGURES 1.1 Total number of UK films by production category, 1992–2017 29 1.2 Total spend on UK films by production category, 1992–2017 30 1.3 Average spend on UK films by production category, 1992–2017 31 1.4 Selective and automatic public funding for film in the UK, 2006/7–2017/18 34 1.5 Top six sources of selective public funding for film in the UK, 2006/7–2017/18 35 1.6 Share of UK and ROI box office by nation of origin, 2002–18 36 1.7 Distributor share of the UK and ROI box office, 2002–18 37 3.1 PolyGram Film Fund procedures flowchart: development and green-lighting 80 3.2 PolyGram Film Fund procedures flow chart: production, sales and revenue 83 3.3 Working Title films funded by PolyGram’s Film Fund 1990–2 84 3.4 World music market: competitor market shares, 1991/1992 89 4.1 Working Title operating framework, 1993 99 4.2 The control sheet (sample) 109 4.3 The expansion of PFEI’s operating companies by year 116 9.1 Domestic vs international box office for Hollywood films, 2001–18 216 TABLES 1.1 Distributor share of box office, UK and ROI, 2018 38 1.2 Box office results for the top twenty UK films released in the UK and ROI, 2018 39 1.3 Box office results for the top twenty UK independent films released in the UK and ROI, 2018 40 2.1 Channel 4, British Screen and BFI funding for Working Title’s films, 1985–8 61 Figures and Tables vii 3.1 Working Title’s slate by funding, distribution and sales, 1988–9 75 4.1 PFE third-party English-language production deals, 1998 105 4.2 PFE’s film and television library acquisitions 117 6.1 Universal’s 1999 production deals 141 7.1 Universal’s 2009 production deals 173 8.1 Universal’s 2016 production deals 185 9.1 PFE slate: box office top fifteen (excluding acquisitions), 1992–8 202 9.2 Working Title’s Universal slate: box office top twenty, 1999–2019 205 9.3 Working Title’s Focus Features slate: box office top fifteen, 1999–2019 208 9.4 WT2’s slate: box office top ten, 1999–2007 210 9.5 Universal’s slate: box office top twenty, 1999–2019 212 9.6 Working Title’s Studiocanal slate: box office top films, 2011–19 214 Acknowledgements In this book I have endeavoured to trace the connections between creativity and commerce at play in the operation of a film production company through- out a series of evolving industrial contexts. In another act of contextualisa- tion, then, it is important to acknowledge the people who have contributed directly and indirectly to its publication. Thanks go to Andrew Higson for his guidance and support throughout both the years of my doctoral research under his supervision and subsequently as a mentor and colleague. Thanks also go to Duncan Petrie for his input on my work at various important junctures over the same time period. I would like to acknowledge the help of former colleagues, Huw Jones and Roderick Smits, who read and commented on earlier drafts of this work and Tim Crosby and Alex Newhouse for their tireless proofreading. More generally, I would like to thank all my colleagues at the Department of Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media at the University of York for their friendship and support throughout the last decade. It has also been a rewarding place to work because of the students who have passed through the department in that time, many of whom are now contending with issues of creativity and commerce for a living. While undertaking research for this book, I was very fortunate to be granted access to the privately held archives of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment (PFE) by the studio’s former President and CEO, Michael Kuhn, and former COO, Malcolm Ritchie. Thanks go to both for permitting use of this invaluable material and to Malcolm, in particular, for his unfaltering help in clarifying various important points of detail along the way. Equally, thanks go to the former and current personnel at Working Title, PFE and Universal, who agreed to be interviewed as part of this research. This book is derived, in part, from articles published in Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television in 2018 (available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2017. 1358415) and 2020 (available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/01439685.20 20.1733204), an article in Journal of British Cinema and Television in 2018 (avail- able online: https://doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2018.0414) and one in Studies in European Cinema in 2019 (available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/174115 48.2018.1501869). Accordingly, I would like to thank Taylor & Francis and Acknowledgements ix Edinburgh University Press for permission to reproduce material from these publications. It is also important to acknowledge several people who have contributed indirectly to the publication of this book at key points in my life. My inter- est in film began twenty years ago at Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College in Darlington. There, I took courses in Sociology and Communications Studies respectively taught by Mike Ellis and Mark Dixon who brought these subjects to life in vivid ways and ignited my interest in academic work. As an undergraduate at the Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds, I had the good fortune to take a course called The European Film Industry: Past, Present and Future(s), taught by Graham Roberts. This was my first engagement with an industry-focused version of film studies and it opened my eyes to some of the bigger questions that I pursued years later as a postgraduate student at the Department of American and Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham. There, Paul Grainge was not only an inspirational teacher but also a great mentor who encouraged me to pursue my interest in industry-focused research. Throughout all these periods of my life, I also have my parents, Audrey and Phil Townsend, to thank for their love and support. Finally, the most recent leg of this journey would have been impossible without my wonderful partner, Leah, to whom this book is dedicated. CREATIVITY AND COMMERCE: A DISAGREEMENT INT. OFFICE – CAPITOL PICTURES – DAY Lead actor, Baird Whitlock, reclines in a chair wearing full wardrobe. Eddie Mannix, Head of Production, sits behind his desk listening to Baird explain his recent absence from the set of Hail, Caesar! A Tale of the Christ. Baird: So, I’m thinkin’, ‘What the hell!’ I’ve woken up in strange houses before but never without a broad next to me. Eddie: Uh-huh Baird: These guys are pretty interesting, though. They’ve actually figured out the laws that dictate everything. History, sociology, politics, morality – everything. It’s all in a book called Kapital with a ‘K’. Eddie: That right? Baird: Yeah. You’re not going to believe this. These guys even figured out what’s going on here at the studio, because the studio is nothing more than an instrument of capitalism. So, we blindly follow these laws like any other institution, the laws that these guys figured out. The studio makes pictures to serve the system. That is its function. That’s really what we’re up to here. Eddie: Is it? Baird: Yeah, it’s confirming what they call the ‘status quo’. I mean, we may tell ourselves that we’re creating something of artistic value or there’s some sort of spiritual dimension to the picture business.