Origin of Films In The UK Film Industry

The UK has never been more representative of the worldwide population than it is today. Of course the Empire days were heady but those years were more concerned about imports rather than the ability to export a single material to the world.

The material in this instance is a labour of the British film industry, a 90 minute or 120 minute cinematic film piece which can be welcomed by the world's citizens no matter what language they speak.

In the UK during 2012 there were 647 film releases with an average of eleven a week. That's a whole lot of cinema to be viewed by the general public. A small percentage of these films were viewed at theatres and special event small house cinemas, that tailor their programming to a particular audience or genre, which would account for a high percentage of foreign films.

However while there were 81 films introduced from India and 51 from the rest of the world, accounting for 20% of the films shown to public audiences, they only accounted for 1.8% of market share at the box office.

In recent years we have seen big name Hollywood actors turning out for smaller studios in foreign countries, though the reliance has been on attracting those interested in foreign made films that are replete with foreign tongue and subtitles. The next category involves European films, of which there were 151 released unto the viewing public. Yet again, the revenues from these performances being shown on screen was only 4.8% of the market share and accounted for 23.3% of total films released.

These films included Taken 2, The Artist and A Monster in Paris, The Artist being an example of a smaller studio using big named Hollywood and British actors. These three films alone formed over 60% of the categories total revenue.

Now it comes to the same old argument of how to steal productions away from America and get producers and directors and film studios to film in the UK instead of America. Aside from the superhero stories - of which Battleship did feature the UK momentarily and may feature in the second instalment more, there is still a staggering difference between revenue streams and film interest between the two countries, though both are English speaking.

From America, 198 films were released in the UK which made up 30% of total films released during the year. The UK released 148 as independent film makers and 14 which were backed by American studios. While the total combined revenue was half of the 726.8 million raised by American films, UK films amounted to only 10% of that total and bumped up to half with the 14 films backed by American studios. Why is that?