FORGET the movies. The true art of Hollywood, according to Batman producer
Peter Guber, is the art of the deal. And, 20 years after the
producer-director David Puttnam and his pals were banished from Hollywood
for sheer snootiness, the British have reemerged as masters of the art of
making money in Tinseltown.
The number of Britons working in the American film industry has surged by 20%
in the past five years. More than 30,000 actors, directors, writers and
moneymen are living in Los Angeles alone, according to their unions.
Flooded by applications, the LA office of the British Academy of Film and
Television Arts has all but closed its doors to new members.
These Brits are not flying to LA for the sunshine. They are here to make
movies and money – and are succeeding.
Reel Britannia, The Sunday Times survey of British talent in the US film
business, as judged by Hollywood insiders, suggests that over the past three
years a new
generation has made itself at home in Hollywood. Many are following in the
steps of the toughest English-born survivors, the producer-director siblings
Ridley and Tony Scott, judged by their peers as the most powerful Britons in
Hollywood today.
Their secret? Fusing the success of blockbusters such as Gladiator, Black Hawk
Down and Man on Fire into a business empire covering television programmes
and a studio business that carried them through the hungry years between
cinematic hits.
Some of the Scotts’ $500m (£250m) box-office bonanza from Gladiator has helped
to refurbish the brothers’ Pinewood and Shepperton studios in Britain, and
win the filming of the next Bond caper from Prague.
Other, younger Britons have made headway into the once-closed worlds of
American cable and network television. Some have made fortunes in Hollywood
without even leaving home, like Harry Potter author JK Rowling – $1.3
billion at the American box office.
“This is an extraordinary time for British talent in Los Angeles. I’ve never
seen anything quite like it,” said Guber, a judging-panel member whose
films, from Midnight Express to The Jacket, have earned $3 billion at the
box office and garnered 120 Oscar nominations.
Australian actors and Mexican directors are generating headlines, but behind
the camera, or “below the line” as they say in Hollywood, it’s all British
directors and moneymen, designers and writers.
According to the latest data from the UK Film Council, UK directors have made
19 of the 200 biggest films of the past six years. UK acting talent features
in more than half of these top 200 films. British writers are behind two of
the three most successful Holly-wood-financed franchises in history –
Star Wars, James Bond and Harry Potter.
It was not always thus. There was a false dawn when burly Colin Welland,
picking up his writing Oscar for Chariots of Fire in 1982, declaimed: “The
British Are Coming.”
And they did. Puttnam, after producing Midnight Express, was lured to
Hollywood to run Columbia Pictures in 1986. But after two years, when he was
accused of running the studio like an extension of the Reithian BBC, looking
down on mere hits, he was pushed out. The once-independent studio was sold
to the Japanese interloper Sony shortly afterwards.
At the same time Goldcrest, the leading UK film-production company, collapsed
in a morass of overbudget and dull flops such as The Mission, Revolution and
Absolute Beginners. Abruptly, and for the next few years, Hollywood closed
its door.
But now the Brits are back, more quietly, more humbly and more successfully
than before. Why? Guber thinks the internet has helped.
“The Brits were early adopters of the net, which has made their product and
skills more available in niche markets than ever before,” he said.
“For example, the buzz about the original version of The Office came through
the net even before it was shown on the cable channel BBC America, prompting
NBC to buy the format for its own version before it got stale – which
is what killed earlier British sitcoms.”
The NBC version of The Office, which Ricky Gervais fostered through infancy
for a rumoured $40,000-a-day “consultancy fee”, may turn out to be a tipping
point for British success in America.
After NBC’s success with The Office, studios realised there was money in
embarrassment and they opened their doors. First to go through was Sacha
Baron Cohen, whose Borat cost $18m to shoot and grossed $260m at the box
office, before DVD and television sales.
This eased the way for other thoroughly British types such as Eddie Izzard,
now a leading man for his gypsy chancer in the series The Riches. Simon Pegg
and Steve Coogan are also being taken seriously as “formatters” of comedies
that could earn them millions.
Comedy is becoming a leading British export; the Reel Britannia vote on actors
indicated a shift from the classically handsome leading man, a tradition
running from Cary Grant to Hugh Grant, to funny men such as Gervais, and,
according to jury member Lynda Obst, Baron Cohen, who she declared is lucky
enough to be both handsome and hilarious.
“He is the Jewish Richard Pryor, the outsider who shows us the truth of things
beneath the rock, and how we have to take risks in our comedy,” said Obst,
who produced Sleepless in Seattle before penning the tell-all Hollywood
memoir Hello, He Lied.
Obst – a big fan of Eddie Izzard, “who is on every casting agent’s list”,
and of Kate Winslet, “the British Meryl Streep” – said the
new school of British directors like Londoner Christopher Nolan, who has
revitalised the Batman franchise, succeed by playing the American money game.
“Christopher Nolan works hard; Like Ridley Scott he wants to make dark but
commercial movies, not just arthouse critic-pleasers like some Europeans,
and people like working with him, which means a great deal in this town. The
new Brits are professionals, which makes life easier.”
Colin Callender, a former stage manager at London’s Royal Court theatre who
now commissions £50m films at HBO, America’s most influential television
network, agrees: “Britain now has an entrepreneurial class forged in the
deregulated television market of the 1980s, skilled in making deals that are
much closer to the Hollywood model than the old BBC system that used to
dominate British media.
“We should thank David Puttnam for teaching us the big lesson –
that although we speak the same language we do not know the rules of
America. Now we take the trouble to learn them,” he said.
Callender has also given a Hollywood budget to the former EastEnd-ers director
Tom Hooper to make a mini-series about the early American president John
Adams. The idea of a British director making such a film would have been
controversial even 10 years ago – not now, say critics. Hollywood wants
Britons; not just highflying directors like Paul Greengrass, whose Bourne
Ultimatum is set to break box-office records this month, but also “ordinary”
actors.
The door has been opened by writers: six of the top 10 global smashes of the
past six years are based on British books. Rowling and JRR Tolkien ($3
billion earned before shooting starts on The Hobbit) have been followed by
Neil Gaiman, the novelist whose books Stardust and Coraline are being filmed
with Robert De Niro, Sienna Miller and Teri Hatcher.
“Three years ago I could walk down the street. Now I am uncomfortable with the
attention I am getting,” said the 46-year-old writer, who lives in the
distinctly unHollywood state of Minnesota. This is before he sells his
10-part supernatural saga, Sandman, to Hollywood in what could be a
record-breaking cash deal.
Many Britons are not in Hollywood for fame. Among those shunning the headlines
are Peter Rice, president of Fox Searchlight, Daniel Battsek, chief
executive at the Disney subsidiary Miramax, and Guy Hendrix Dyas, the set
designer who created the look of The Matrix and Superman Returns.
Others are content to drop in. Next month Tim Haynes, creator of Walking With
Dinosaurs, which has been turned into a $100m-grossing touring show, is back
in LA for another Emmy ceremony. He said: “I will meet a few people and then
go home.”
So what could cause trouble in para-dise? James Ulmer, whose Ulmer Report
market tests stars, ranks Kate Winslet as the 34th most important actress in
the world. Commanding up to $10m a film, she is way ahead of any British
rival. But he said it could all melt down – again.
How? According to the jury, beware laziness and arrogance.
Ulmer said: “When in Hollywood, respect its rules. British talent is less
neurotic than ours, which means you should have a much longer shelf life.
“The Hollywood Brits are in a golden age – enjoy it while it
lasts.”
REEL BRITANNIA
Behind the camera
1 Ridley Scott, 69, and Scott Free Productions Tony Scott, 63
2 Peter Rice, 39 President, Fox Searchlight
3 Colin Callender, 55 President, HBO Films
4 Simon Fuller, 47 Chief executive, 19 Entertainment
5 Graham King, 45 Chief executive Initial Entertainment Group
6 Mark Burnett, 47 Chief executive, MBP production company
7 Sir Howard Stringer, 64 Chief executive, Sony Corporation
8 Nick Reed, 44 Literary/fi lm agent Bridget Jones, the Bourne Identity
9 Paul Greengrass, 51 Director United 93, The Bourne Supremacy
10 Guy Hendrix Dyas, 38 Designer Superman Returns, The Matrix
In front of the camera
1. Kate Winslet, 31 five Oscar nominations since Titanic
2. Sacha Baron Cohen, 35 a cultural phenomenon
3. Christian Bale, 33 the modern Batman
4. Dame Helen Mirren, 62 Thespian royalty
5. Hugh Grant, 46 still the classic leading man
6. Jude Law, 34 overexposed, but respected
7. Rachel Weisz, 36 Looking for a second Oscar
8. Keira Knightley, 22 English beauty beloved by Pirates
9 Ralph Fiennes, 44 the constant actor and Oscar nominee
10. Daniel Craig, 39 Bonding with Hollywood
Succeeding from home
1. J K Rowling, 42 author - Edinburgh
2. Tim Bevan, 50 and Eric Fellner, 47 Working Title - London
3. Richard Curtis, 50 writer-director - London
4. Catherine Zeta-Jones, 37 Oscar-winning actress – Bermuda
5. Dame Judi Dench, 72 Oscar-winning actress – Surrey
SOME OF THE LEADING PLAYERS
Ridley and Tony Scott In the summer of 1963, Ridley, a European
arthouse film fan, borrowed a Bolex camera to shoot his kid brother cycling
around their home town of Hartlepool. Since then they have done ads, such as
the Hovis one featuring a boy on a bike, and films such as Alien, Blade
Runner, Thelma and Louise, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, Crimson Tide,
Gladiator and Black Hawk Down.
Peter Rice He graduated in American studies at Nottingham University,
became an office aide at The Times and then took a ‘holiday’ in Los Angles
from which he never returned. His low-key manner enabled him to bond as a
producer with flamboyant directors such as Baz Luhrmann, helping him marry
arthouse and musical in Moulin Rouge. Peter Rice runs Fox Searchlight, which
promotes ‘small’ movies.
Colin Callender He has quietly eclipsed Simon Fuller and Simon Cowell
of American Idol fame as the most influential Briton in American television.
Colin Callender won his first Emmy at the newly-launched Channel 4 for
producing The Life and Times of Nicholas Nickleby but then undid his good
work by launching the career of Jonathan Ross in The Last Resort. Today he
sets the cultural bar high with HBO films such as Wit.
Graham King Another Briton who flew to LA as a student and never went home, Graham King is a born salesman who learnt the ropes selling American
sitcoms to the Third World. Catherine Zeta-Jones gave King his big break
when she brought him the script for the British series Traffic: he turned it
into an Oscar-winning movie with $100m raised under a German tax scheme. He
is also Martin Scorsese’s film banker.
Paul Greengrass Today’s long grey hair, glasses and paunch do not
disguise the fiery young documentary maker who made his name in the 1980s
co-authoring Spycatcher with rogue MI5 agent Peter Wright. The UK lottery
funded Bloody Sunday, his big-screen debut about the Northern Ireland
shootings in 1972. Its dark yet accessible style made him employable for
United 93, an account of the September 11 hijackings.
HOW WE JUDGED THEM
THE British Film Council produced a ‘long list’ of 100 British actors,
directors and other specialists principally employed in the American film
industry, from which the Sunday Times jury considered 40 leading talents and
split them into ‘above the line’ (actors) and ‘below the line’ (everyone
else).
The jury voted on five criteria: past contribution, current status, talent,
future prospects and liability (how easy they are to work with).
This year’s all-American judges were:
Paul Degarabedian:Studios’ box-office consultant, and chief executive
of LA-based Media By Numbers
Peter Guber:He has produced $3 billion of films, including Midnight
Express and Batman. He is also a sports entrepreneur and university lecturer
Lynda Obst:Producer of Sleepless in Seattle, Contact and How to Lose a
Guy In Ten Days. She is also author of the memoir Hello, He Lied
Richard Rush:Oscar-nominated director of The Stunt Man, Freebie and
The Bean, and Color of Night. He was the scriptwriter behind Air America
Douglas Urbanski:Gary Oldman’s business partner. He is also a producer
and Hollywood’s leading Republican radio host.
Please don't forget to include Tom Hollander! A most excellant British actor of stage and screen.
C. King, Fayetteville , USA
Interestingly, many British are also popping up in reality based American TV shows such as American Idol (Simon Cowler) and America Has Talent (Pierce Morgan, Sharon Osbourne).
Americans find their accent and wit refreshing.
I do not think most Americans view the British as a "foreign" influence in Hollywood. They have in fact, been a part of Hollywood for a very long time starting with Charlie Chaplan.
Jay Evans, San Diego, CA
There's Hugh Laurie too. He's terrific as Dr Greg House in the medical series 'House'.
Sarah Hague, Montpellier, France
You seem to have forgotten: Idris Elba, Eamonn Walker, Hugh Laurie, Parminder Nagra, Adewale Agbaje.
All leading cast member from HBO series' to network tv.
I guess you lot don't watch great shows like Oz, the wire, Deadwood or House.
Thurgood Marshall, London,