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UK film production spend hits record level of £1.1 billion

Captain America, Pirates and Horrid Henry drive UK film production spend to record level of £1.1 billion; Toy Story 3, Alice and Harry Potter boost UK cinema-going, with £1 billion plus ticket sales

Record inward investment level - up 15% to £928.9 million from £810.7 million in 2009
Investment in independent British film production and co-productions drops 13%
UK/ Ireland box office strong with £1.08 billion in ticket sales, up 2% on 2009
Market share for British films hits 22.6% from 16.7% in 2009

LONDON - Thursday 20 January 2011 

Investment in new UK film production reached £1.155 billion across 119 films in 2010, a new record for the British film industry, according to new independent figures published today by the UK Film Council. 

Films of different genres and budget levels including Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, War Horse, Horrid Henry, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Sherlock Holmes 2 increased spend in the British film production sector by 8% on 2009's £1.071 billion.

Within the overall production spend, international investment also set a new record, with £928.9 million spent in the UK on making 28 films, a 15% increase on 2009.   The number of domestic UK films made last year was 72, an 11% drop on 2009.  The expenditure on making those films – £174 million – registers as a 22% fall.  Globally, there has been a drop in feature film production investment with 2009 down by 4% (the latest figures available).  At the same time, the number of UK co-productions with other countries dropped to 19 from 26 in 2009, but, at £52 million, spend on these films is a 45% increase on 2009.

Box office figures increased by 2% on 2009, breaking through the £1 billion barrier for the second year running.  Toy Story 3, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One, Alice in Wonderland and Inception topped the charts. British films proved popular with audiences, accounting for 22.6% of all ticket sales, including 5.5% from independent British films. Streetdance 3D, backed by the UK Film Council with £1 million of Lottery funding, was the most successful independent British film at the UK box office, earning in excess of £11.6 million.

Tim Cagney, Managing Director of the UK Film Council, said: "These figures – over £1 billion of investment in UK film production and more than £1 billion spent at the UK box office – underline the vital contribution that film makes to Britain's cultural and economic fabric. After ten years of UK Film Council support, they highlight the importance of a strong film sector and reinforce the UK's reputation as one of the most competitive and highly-skilled places in the world to make films.

"The figures also show how difficult it is to raise finance for making independent British films and, with four of the top ten grossing UK independent films funded by the UK Film Council, the ongoing value of public investment in new British films and talent."

Film production spending in the UK

Today's statistics cover films with productions budgets of £500,000 and above and are based information tracked by the UK Film Council's Research and Statistics Unit.  They cover UK spend (for three categories of film) for the calendar year 2010:

• indigenous / domestic UK film production;
• inward investment productions (films with finance from overseas but made mainly or significantly in the UK); and
• UK co-productions filmed both in the UK and abroad using UK crew and expertise.

They show that:

• The UK was involved in the production of a total of 119 feature films in 2010 (144 in 2009), with a total UK production spend of £1.155 billion going into the British economy. This is higher than 2009's total of £1,017 million and a new record overall for the UK film industry. 
• Inward investment from international filmmakers, such as the major Hollywood studios locating productions in the UK, hit a record high at £928.9 million from 28 films, 15% higher than 2009's £810.7 million from 35 films. These films included War Horse, Captain America: The First Avenger, Hugo Cabret, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two and John Carter of Mars.
• £174.1 million was spent on making 72 UK domestic feature films in 2010 (compared with 83 in 2009, spending £224.4 million).  These included Horrid Henry, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Johnny English Reborn, Wuthering Heights and The Deep Blue Sea.
• The UK was involved in 19 co-productions, with a total UK spend of £52 million (compared to 2009's 26 co-productions at a value of £35.9 million).  These included Will, Africa United and Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie.

UK box office

Box office takings were strong in 2010, up 2% to £1.076 billion for the UK and Republic of Ireland, proving that cinema remains hugely popular despite difficult economic times.  The box office share for British films (including UK/US co-productions) was 22.6% (including 5.5% contributed by independent British films), an increase of 2009's market share of 16.7%.

The highest grossing film of 2010 was Toy Story 3, taking a hefty £73.8 million, followed by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One (£50.6 million), Alice in Wonderland (£42.5 million) and Inception (£35.8 million).

A total of 28 3D films were released, grossing £237.4 million, a 24% market share, up from 16% in 2009.  The top 3D release, Toy Story 3, earned 72% of its takings from 3D.  Streetdance 3D, the first UK-produced 3D film (and part-funded by the UK Film Council) grossed £11 million from 3D screens, 95% of its total revenue.

Table 1: Number of features produced in the UK, 2003 - 2010

Source: UK Film Council

Data for films with budgets >= £500,000

Films are allocated to the calendar year in which principal photography commenced.

Data have been revised since the publication of the Q3 2010 report. See notes at the end of the report for details.

Table 2: UK spend of features produced in the UK, 2003 - 2010, £ millions

Source: UK Film Council

Data are rounded to the nearest £0.1m so may not sum exactly to the totals shown.
See notes to Table 1.

Top 20 films released in the UK and Republic of Ireland, 2010

Source: Rentrak EDI

Box office gross = cumulative gross up to 9 January 2011.
Films with an asterisk (*) were still being exhibited on 9 January 2011.
UK and Republic of Ireland are a single "territory" for film distribution purposes.

For press enquiries please contact

UK Film Council press office:
T: +44 (0)20 7861 7900 / 7505
E: press@ukfilmcouncil.org.uk

Notes to Editors

The UK Film Council

Since being set up in 2000 the UK Film Council has backed more than 900 films, shorts and features, which have won over 300 awards and entertained more than 200 million people around the world generating £5 for every £1 of Lottery money it has invested. 

Our Film Fund funds exciting new British films and develops new filmmakers and our Distribution and Exhibition initiatives get a wider choice of films to audiences throughout the UK. We also invest in training British talent, promoting Britain as an international filmmaking location and raising the profile of British films abroad.  We also support film education and culture through our partnership with the British Film Institute.

British films we have developed and funded include Tom Hooper's The King's Speech, the UK's first 3D film Streetdance 3D, Another Year, Made in Dagenham, Debs Gardner-Paterson's Africa United, Bright Star, Fish Tank, In the Loop, Tamara Drewe, Bend it like Beckham, The Constant Gardener, Gosford Park, Happy-Go-Lucky, The Last King of Scotland, Man on Wire, Nowhere Boy, Red Road, St Trinian's, This is England, Touching the Void, Vera Drake and The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

Current and forthcoming films that we have supported include Clio Barnard's The Arbor, Terence Davies's The Deep Blue Sea. Peter Mullan's Neds, Joe Cornish's Attack the Block, Rowan Joffe's Brighton Rock, Lynne Ramsay's We Need to Talk about Kevin, Justin Chadwick's The First Grader, Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights, Ayub Khan-Din's West is West, Gillian Wearing's Self-Made and John Akomfrah's The Nine Muses.     

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