Low-budget blockbusting film firm faces axe after string of costly flops
Katrina Tweedie
IT WAS famous for giving home-grown talent a chance and making low- budget films that became world-wide blockbusters.
Now FilmFour, responsible for cult successes such as Trainspotting and Four Weddings and A Funeral, is facing the axe after a series of expensive box-office flops.
The film production company is also bearing the brunt of crippling financial losses at parent company, Channel 4, of £20million last year.
Movie insiders are dismayed and say its closure would be a disaster for the British film industry.
Stars like Ewan McGregor and Hugh Grant owe much of their success to their early appearances in FilmFour’s risk-taking productions.
But some critics have labelled its creative endeavours as obscure and unlikely to win large audiences.
And despite huge critical and box-office hits like The Full Monty, FilmFour has struggled recently.
Big-budget ventures such as Charlotte Gray, a £15million epic wartime romance starring Cate Blanchett, and the romantic comedy Lucky Break, with James Nesbitt, were both box-office disasters. Its most recent big movie, K-Pax, with Kevin Spacey, also bombed.
Losses throughout Channel 4 have also had a knock-on financial implications for the film company, which is seen as an easy target.
Broadcasting sources said one option was to merge FilmFour with Channel 4’s TV drama department – in effect, closing it down.During the 1990s, FilmFour was the saviour of the UK film industry.
It was one of the few companies making films in Britain, which meant actors and directors did not need to go to the US to work.
Alan Morrison, film critic from Empire magazine and Daily Record columnist, said: “It made hipper films for a young audience, such as Shallow Grave, that might otherwise not have been made.
“It would be a major loss for cinema-goers who don’t want to see mass-produced American studio films all the time.”
Harvey Weinstein, the boss of American independent giant Miramax, dismissed the idea of closure as “the most foolish thing” Channel 4 could do.
He said: “If anybody pulls the plug on FilmFour, especially right now, it would be a huge mistake.
“FilmFour is the best thing that ever happened to the British film industry. It has built up a great library of movies.
“Movie companies are built on the strengths of their libraries – stay the course and you will win.”
He added that the idea of closing FilmFour at the present time was particularly ironic as several of its forthcoming ventures have the potential to become huge successes.
Among these possible hits is Edgardo Mortara, an Italian period drama with Sir Anthony Hopkins.
The yet to be released film, Buffalo Soldiers, starring Joaquin Phoenix, about American soldiers based in West Germany, is also expected to win critical acclaim.
Now film industry veterans are calling on FilmFour to be saved.
Stephen Woolley, whose FilmFour credits include The Crying Game, said: “We don’t have many financiers in this country, so without FilmFour, where will people go?”
A FilmFour insider said: “Our losses are smaller than the digital channels and it’s a pity that we, and not them, should have to close.”
A decision is due to be taken by the Channel 4 board next week.
A spokesman for Channel 4 said: “Nothing has been decided.”
This is bad news for fans of challenging, inventive films. Like me.
Will
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