UK Film Council Publishes Statistical Yearbook on UK Film

http://www.digitalcinemainfo.com/ukfilmcouncil_07_20_09.php

 

July 20, 2009

Source: UK Film Council

-British films bank $4 billion at 2008 global box office
-UK films take 15% of global box office and 31% of UK box office
-UK has more digital screens than any other European country
-Best first half year UK film production figures since 2004
-Number of indigenous productions up on last year

British films banked $4.2 billion worldwide last year, according to the latest statistics published today by the UK Film Council.

For the latest information on film please see our 2009 Statistical Yearbook http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/yearbook

Based on box office revenues, almost one in six film viewings at the cinema around the world last year was of a British film, equalling 15% of the global box office and accumulating $4.2 billion in ticket sales, nearly a billion dollars more than in 2007. The Dark Knight was the best performing UK qualifying film at the worldwide box office, earning almost $1 billion, whilst in Europe the top British film was the UK/USA production Mamma Mia!, which attracted more than 34 million admissions.

Compiled by the UK Film Council’s Research and Statistics Unit, the Statistical Yearbook presents the most comprehensive picture of film in the UK and the performance of British films abroad during 2008.

John Woodward, Chief Executive Officer of the UK Film Council, said:

“Billions at the box office and billions back to the UK economy – these are big numbers which underline the value of the UK film industry and the strength of our cultural talent. They also highlight just how important it is that we build on the many hard-won achievements and continue to invest in the long-term future of British film.

“From Harry Potter to Slumdog Millionaire and from James Bond to In the Loop, let’s celebrate the financial benefits these films bring and the British creative skill involved in making them. Similarly, the healthy return of inward investment and the increase in the number of indigenous productions in the first half of 2009 show the underlying health of the British film industry.

“The one downside – and as the UK Film Council has consistently said – is the worrying drop in co-productions, once again reinforcing the need to revisit the film tax relief, which currently stifles UK filmmakers from building international film partnerships and disadvantages them when filming abroad.”

Film Minister Siôn Simon said:

“Film is one of the UK's great success stories of recent years. We are incredibly good at producing creative talent in the UK and the Government continues to work hard to ensure that the infrastructure, support and funding systems are in place to allow this talent to thrive. It should be clear to anyone from recent awards and box office successes that we are in the middle of a bumper time for British film, and today's remarkably buoyant set of statistics are clear evidence of that. We should all be proud of how well UK film is doing on the domestic and world stage at the moment, but the greatest credit should of course go to the production and acting talent that make this possible.”

Box-office success

At home British films were a massive hit, accounting for 31% of the tickets sold in the UK, up from 29% in 2007. Five of the top 20 films at the UK box office in 2008 were British, led by Mamma Mia!, which earned more than £69 million to become the highest grossing film of all time at the UK box office. The other top British films were Quantum of Solace (£51 million), The Dark Knight (£49 million), Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (£12 million) and Sweeney Todd (£11 million).

The top 20 performing UK films – which also includes independent British films such as Adulthood, The Duchess and The Other Boleyn Girl – grossed £266 million at the UK box office, a record achievement and £22 million more than in 2007. UK films topped the weekend box office charts for 16 weeks in 2008.

Despite the onset of the ‘credit crunch’ in late 2008, cinema-going has remained one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the UK, with an increase in both box office and admissions. Box office receipts totalled £850 million, a rise of 3.5% on 2007’s £821 million and a 50% increase since the UK Film Council was created in 2000. In addition, audiences for film on DVD and television also remained strong. The average British viewer watched 63 films on television over the year.

Summer cinema admissions in the UK hit 54 million, the highest since 1969, thanks to blockbusters Mamma Mia! and The Dark Knight. Admissions for the year climbed to 164 million, in contrast to some other countries which reported a fall in admissions – Spain (down 8%), Italy (down 4%) and the US (down 2%). Overall UK audiences had a far greater choice of films last year, with 527 films released, 34% more than ten years ago.

British talent and creativity

British creativity is the source of many of the top 200 global box office successes between 2001 and 2008, with 31 of the top 200 films based on stories and characters created by UK writers. Together those films have earned more than $15 billion at the worldwide box office. Eight of the top 20 global box office successes of the last eight years are based on novels by British writers, and more than half of the top 200 films released worldwide since 2001 have featured UK actors in lead or prominent supporting roles.

This success is bolstered by the tally of awards won by Brits. In 2008 alone, British films and talent scooped 32 awards, including Daniel Day-Lewis and Tilda Swinton’s Oscars® and BAFTAs for their leading and supporting roles in There Will Be Blood and Michael Clayton, costume design and visual effects Oscars® for The Golden Compass and awards for Steve McQueen’s Hunger at the Cannes, Toronto and Venice Film Festivals. James Marsh’s Man on Wire picked up two awards at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, going on to win an Oscar® in 2009. British films and talent have now won 205 awards at the major awards events and film festivals between 2001 and 2008, representing 14% of the total of all major awards.

Film production

Alongside its Statistical Yearbook, the UK Film Council also publishes today the UK film production statistics for the first half of 2009. The numbers indicate the healthy return of inward investment films to UK studios in 2009, giving the UK its best first half year (H1) production figures since 2004. The total UK spend value in H1 2009 was £535.1 million, compared with £363 million in H1 2008.

Of the £535.1 million total, £436.2 million was accounted for by inward investment films such as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Clash of the Titans and Gulliver’s Travels.

Of this total, £89.9 million was accounted for by 33 UK domestic productions – an increase in the number of indigenous productions since H1 2008. UK domestic titles include Centurion, Nowhere Boy and It’s a Wonderful Afterlife. A significant trend in the UK production statistics is the fall in average and median budgets for UK domestic films. The average budget for UK domestic films has fallen from £5.6 million in 2003 to £3.3 million in H1 2009. Over the same period, the median domestic UK film budget has fallen from £2.9 million to £1.3 million, reflecting the tougher investment climate affecting UK domestic films and the need for efficiencies across the board.

Three co-productions – Outcast, Mr Nice and The Ghost – contributed a UK spend value of £8.9 million, down from previous years and a further reflection of the impact on co-productions of the new UK film tax relief which is limited to production spend on UK shores and therefore excludes spend on filming for UK films at international locations.

Other statistics in the yearbook include:

In 2007, the UK film industry had a total turnover of nearly £6.1 billion and its contribution to the UK GDP was £2.5 billion, 0.2% of the total.

The UK film industry exported £1,050 million worth of services in 2007, an all time high and a 50% increase compared to 2001. This was made up of £646 million in royalties and £403 million in film production services.

The UK film trade surplus (earnings from our exports outweighing expenditure on imports) in 2007 was £232 million.

The UK had 3,610 cinema screens (96 more than 2007) in 726 cinemas (one less cinema than in 2007) and 310 digital screens, the highest number in Europe, and 20% of the European total. 240 of these are part of the UK Film Council’s Digital Screen Network.

There was a massive growth in digital screens internationally, particularly in North America, with the global total rising to 8,797 compared to only 848 in 2005.

2008 was the year in which 3D began to make an impact; 69 UK screens were 3D capable, a huge increase from just 5 in 2006. This figure is expected to rise significantly with the increase in 3D releases. The top performing 3D title in the UK was Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

Alternative content events screened in UK cinemas have more than doubled to 67 from 31 in 2007. Events ranged from live or recorded operas, pop music concerts, as well as film screenings with live ‘virtual’ premieres and Q&A sessions, such as the Lottery-funded premiere of The Age of Stupid.

For the first time, the Yearbook has looked at the top films of all time and adjusted them for inflation. Whilst Mamma Mia!’s actual UK box office leads with £69 million to date, adjustments for inflation show that Titanic is still the UK’s highest grossing film of all time with nearly £86 million in 2007/08 terms.

The total size of the film audience in the UK last year was estimated to be 4.7 billion. Over 70% (3.5 billion) of the total was the audience for film on television, followed by 22% watching film on DVD and video. Film on multi-channel television also showed a 51% rise in popularity.

Films in 31 different foreign languages were released in 2008, spread across 188 films and earning £27 million at the box office. Hindi was the most common foreign language in terms of the number of releases.

The top four foreign language films were The Orphanage (Spanish), Rab Ne Bana De Jodi (Hindi), Singh is King (Hindi) and I’ve Loved You So Long (French).

Comedy is consistently the UK’s most popular genre with UK audiences and took £222 million, accounting for 24% of the box office share. Musicals, including the massive hit Mamma Mia!, took an average of £113.2 million per cinema, more than any other genre.

British films are particularly popular with the over 55s, including The Duchess, Mamma Mia! and In Bruges. Top films for women were Penelope, Wild Child and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (all UK films), while men opted for Iron Man, Hellboy II: The Golden Army and Yes Man.

Film tastes vary across the regions. Adulthood was particularly popular amongst London audiences, whilst Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was a hit with the Midlands, High School Musical 3 was a favourite in Tees/Yorkshire and Scottish audiences preferred Juno, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People and Twilight.
A record 258 million films on DVD were sold, whilst DVD rentals at 79 million were 19% down on 2007). Mamma Mia! was the top over-the-counter rental title and the highest selling DVD, followed by The Dark Knight.

The value of the UK film VOD market in 2008 was estimated at £120 million.

· The share of female screenwriters of UK films increased to 17% in 2008 from 15% in 2007, and the share of directors rose to 12%, up from 6% in 2007.

· The UK saw 25 inward investment films go into production last year, including Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Quantum of Solace, The Wolfman, Nine and The Fantastic Mr Fox, with a production spend of £338.2 million. 66 domestic UK films went into production, with a spend of £192 million, including The Boat that Rocked, Green Zone and Dorian Gray. Co-productions included Chèri, Bright Star and Looking for Eric.

In 2008 there were nearly 8,000 film and video production companies, 435 distributors and 230 exhibitors. The number of both small and large companies grew: in 2008 there were 150 production companies with a turnover of £5 million or more, compared with only 45 in 1996.

For the latest information on film please see our 2009 Statistical Yearbook www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/yearbook