ERIC FELLNER has a big wide-screen television in his office. It is not executive vanity, but a tool of the trade. He’s watching the final takes from shooting on the new film version of Pride and Prejudice, starring British cinema’s hottest property, Keira Knightley.

Fellner checks the film’s progress most days. His company, Working Title, is producing it, and he and co-chairman Tim Bevan are anxious to ensure that work is on track and producing the type of footage that could bring them a hit. They like what they have seen so far, but admit that film production is an uncertain business.

Thunderbirds, a live-action version of the cult puppet television series, was meant to be a summer blockbuster but turned out to be a damp squib. It shows the risky nature of their work. “Frankly, this is a crazy business,” said Fellner.

Despite Thunderbirds, Working Title is that rarest of birds, a successful British film company. Fellner and Bevan are best known for Four Weddings and a Funeral, which cost $4m and brought in $258m (£144m) at the box office, but the two have made more than 70 films.

Within six months Working Title films should break through the $3 billion mark in total box-office takings, a milestone that makes it easily the biggest film-production house in Europe and probably one of the top 10 in the world.

Comparable figures on international box-office receipts in a Hollywood-dominated industry are not often collated, but $3 billion in receipts means that Working Title bears comparison with such latter-day silver-screen legends as Jerry Bruckheimer and Scott Rubin.

As well as Four Weddings, Working Title was behind Bridget Jones’s Diary (and the sequel, out in November), Notting Hill, Love Actually, Billy Elliot, Shaun of the Dead and five Coen brothers films.

Fellner and Bevan are often cited as an example of how independent British companies can compete with Hollywood. But Working Title is in fact majority owned by NBC Universal, a division of General Electric, with Canal Plus a minority shareholder.

Bevan founded Working Title in 1984, giving up his job in music-video production. Realising that life as an independent was too precarious, he secured the backing of Polygram, which bought a stake in his production house.

“It gave us access to capital and allowed us to work with a portfolio of films, rather than being reliant on having a single project come good,” he said. “We needed to be in a position where we could write off development spending without it breaking the company.”

Fellner joined in 1992. During a round of media deals in the 1990s, Working Title was variously owned by a combination of Seagram, Vivendi, Canal Plus and Universal. The last is now the majority shareholder, having passed 25% to Canal Plus.

As well as capital, the relationship with Universal brings distribution, often the Achilles heel of otherwise promising film projects. “If we had made Four Weddings without that link, we would still be chasing round the world suing people for money,” said Bevan.

If the alliance of British talent and Hollywood finance and distribution has been so successful, why have other British production companies not secured similar deals? “A lot of people might want it, but that doesn’t mean you get it,” said Fellner. “Being successful as a film maker is really difficult. People might think it is glamorous but there is a lot of trenchwork involved.”

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