Working Title Films: A Creative and Commercial History

About the Book

Working Title Films is arguably the most important production company in the history of British cinema. This wide-ranging book charts the creative and commercial history of Working Title, from its origins as an independent in the 1980s, to its integration into PolyGram Filmed Entertainment in the 1990s, and to its current status as a subsidiary of Universal since the 2000s. In doing so, the relationship between the film industries and cultures of Britain and Hollywood is examined through a consideration of the industrial structures, processes and practices which have defined the operation of the company. Moreover, it considers the ways in which these industrial transitions have produced distinct versions of Britain and Britishness onscreen ranging from My Beautiful Laundrette and Wish You Were Here to Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, and from Johnny English and Nanny McPhee to The Theory of Everything and Yesterday.
Drawing on over 30 interviews with key personnel from Working Title, PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and Universal, the author examines not only how this remarkable company has evolved but also why it has evolved in the way that it has by situating its history within the ever-changing landscapes of the British and Hollywood film industries.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures and TablesAcknowledgements Introduction 1. Transatlantic British Cinema and the Political Economy of Film 2. The Independent Years: Hand-to-mouth Production and Social Art Cinema (1984–8) 3. The PolyGram Years Part I: Founding a Studio and Making a Subsidiary (1988–92) 4. The PolyGram Years Part II: Development, Green-lighting and Distribution (1993–8) 5. Swapping Studios: From PolyGram to Universal (1998–9) 6. The Universal Years Part I: Development, Green-lighting and Distribution (1999–2006) 7. The Universal Years Part II: Retrenchment and Reorientation (2007–12) 8. The Universal Years Part III: New Relationships (2012– ) 9. The Global Market for Working Title’s Films 10. Transatlantic British Cinema: Creative Risk, Commercial Risk and the Issue of Diversity BibliographyFilmographyIndex

About the Author :
Nathan Townsend is Lecturer in Creative Industries in the School of Arts and Creative Technologies at the University of York

Review :
This is an important book, providing a much-needed history of Working Title, the most successful and influential UK production company over the past forty years. Nathan Townsend’s lucid and penetrating analysis, informed by deeply assimilated theory and an abundance of primary research, shows how the company managed to reconcile the competing demands of creativity and commerce to forge what he calls a Transatlantic British Cinema that promotes particular versions of Britishness. Deftly combining the micro and the macro, Townend’s authoritative study makes a significant contribution to Media Industry Studies as well as British cinema history and deserves the widest possible readership. There ought to have been a studio study devoted to Working Title years ago. Now, thankfully, there is one. And Nathan Townsend’s book proves that it’s certainly been worth the wait. This is a work of meticulous scholarship which does more than chart the history of what he terms, with customary qualification, ‘arguably the most important production company in the history of British cinema’. The story of Working Title, in Townsend’s thoroughly contextualised approach, is also the history of the British film industry over the past 40 years. Furthermore, it is an object lesson in how to do production history. Essential reading for anyone engaged in the serious study of contemporary British cinema, Nathan Townsend’s book provides a long overdue full critical analysis of Working Title’s operations and outputs since its inception four decades ago. It traces the company’s complex history and surveys the full range of its transnational endeavours, from Oscar-winning highs to critic infuriating lows, and is nourished throughout by Townsend’s conceptual sophistication and granular attention to detail.