UK films make great box office with £1.6bn record

Keira Knightley and JK Rowling have helped the British film industry enjoy its best year, earning a record £1.65 billion around the world.

British films including Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix and The Golden Compass achieved global success as audiences at home and abroad flocked to cinemas to watch movies showcasing homegrown talent.

The scale of the British takeover was revealed in a report from the UK Film Council published today. It said that about 700 million people worldwide bought tickets to see British films last year - twice as many as in 2006.

The film council calculates that the top 20 UK films grossed £244 million at the British box office - an increase of more than 60 per cent on 2006.

UK movies also accounted for almost a third of all cinema tickets sold in Britain, up from one in five the previous year. The most successful British movie of the year was the latest Harry Potter film, based on JK Rowling's book, which earned £49 million in Britain alone.

Other top films included another adaptation of a popular children's book, The Golden Compass (£26 million takings in the UK). Comedies Mr Bean's Holiday (£22million) and Hot Fuzz (£20million) proved popular, as did the Sienna Miller movie Stardust ( £ 15 million), St Trinian's (£12 million) and Atonement (£12 million), which starred Keira Knightley and James McAvoy.

The Bourne Ultimatum, much of which was filmed in London, is also included on the top 10 list, taking £23 million.

Its report also highlights the success of Lottery-funded films over the past decade and the input of British writers on the film industry around the world.

The top three independent UK films of the last decade - Gosford Park (£12.3 million), St Trinian's (£12.2 million) and Bend It Like Beckham (£11.6 million) - were all co-funded by the UK Film Council. Of the top 200 films at the worldwide box office from 2001-2007, 30 were based on stories and characters created by British writers. Those films have earned in excess of $14 billion.

John Woodward, chief executive officer of the film council, said: "These statistics show that in the UK we make films in every genre from comedy to fantasy to thrillers and British films took more than $3.3 billion across the globe last year. The real success story is that we not only make big budget films like Harry Potter but we also make hugely successful smaller indie films such as Control and This Is England.

"Last year we had a great crop of British films and a good year at the box office and the two are connected because the British public buy more tickets when there are more home grown films. We've got more to look forward to this year with a Bond and a Potter, as well as Brideshead Revisited, How To Lose Friends And Alienate People and Keira Knightley in The Duchess all due in cinemas soon."

But he warned: "The future is not without challenges; winning film investment is going to be tougher with the fallout from the US writers' strike while the threat of film piracy looms larger as broadband download speeds become faster."

BEST OF BRITISH

British actors have won 173 awards at major film awards and festivals between 2001 and 2007.

The last decade has seen a 50 per cent increase in UK box office takings.

Cinema admissions rose four per cent last year to 162 million, reversing a two-year decline, while box office receipts totalled £821 million - a rise of eight per cent compared with 2006.

The total size of the film audience in the UK last year was estimated to be 4.3 billion.

Films in 33 foreign languages were released last year, spread across 170 films and earning £32 million at the box office.

The top four foreign language films were Apocalypto (Mayan), The Lives Of Others (German), La Vie En Rose (French) and Om Shanti Om (Hindi).

Comedy was the most popular genre with UK audiences taking £207 million or 22 per cent of the box office share.

Last year, 98 million DVDs were rented and 250 million DVDs were sold. The Departed was the top over-the-counter rental title and Casino Royale was the highest selling DVD.

The number of production companies with a turnover above £5 million grew from 45 in 1996 to 180 last year.