By Alison Boshoff
|
The Oscars may not seem, this year, to be very British. There is no plucky little British film like The King’s Speech, ready to sweep all Hollywood before it. However, one British film company has received an incredible 12 nominations this year alone â€" eight for Les Miserables and four for Anna Karenina.
And, with six Oscars already on their mantelpiece, you would lay money on the boys at Working Title bringing home a little gold man again in 2013.
But who are they? What is the truth about their intriguing backstory, featuring supermodels, Ferraris and acting dynasties? And are they really at war with their great protégé Hugh Grant?
Flying the flag: British film company Working Title received eight nominations for Les Miserables and an additional four for Anna Karenina
THE QUIET ONE
Softly spoken and cerebral, with a supermodel girlfriend and Ferrari, film producer Eric Fellner, 53, is credited as the company’s creative genius.
After making music videos for Duran Duran, Ultravox, Fleetwood Mac and other pop giants â€" and then overcoming a heroin addiction in 1990 â€" he joined Working Title in 1992. Fellner has three sons with his ex-wife, the actress and director Gaby Fella, and a son Luc, eight, and daughter Lola, four with his partner Laura Bailey â€" a former girlfriend of Richard Gere. The couple and their children live in London.
THE SHOWMAN
Handsome, smart and sociable, Tim Bevan, 54, is fully versed in the business side of films. Born in New Zealand before moving to Britain as a child, he founded Working Title with friend Sarah Radcliffe, who left before Eric arrived. The two men are now business partners and CBEs, as well as being great pals â€" they often finish each other’s sentences.
Bevan has a daughter, Daisy, 20, with his actress ex-wife Joely Richardson, and two children with his second wife, artist Amy Gadney. Daisy, 20, is now striking out as an actress and appears in the Working Title film The Two Faces of January.
En-titled: Working Title's Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, posing with their 2012 BAFTA wins, are nominated to twelve Oscars this Sunday
THE HITS
Four Weddings and a Funeral; Notting Hill; Love Actually; Bridget Jones’s Diary; Fargo; Frost/Nixon; Bean; Billy Elliott; About A Boy; Atonement; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; Johnny English Reborn; Nanny McPhee; United 93; Senna; Shaun of the Dead; State of Play .?.?. and many, many more. Working Title films are estimated to have grossed £2.6?billion.
THE FLOPS
Thunderbirds (2004); Green Zone; Contraband; Big Miracle; The Boat That Rocked .?.?. and a few more. Tim said: ‘In the year you do Bridget Jones 2 you know that film is going to do all right, so you can take a bigger risk at the other end, which was .?.?. Thunderbirds.’
THE HUGH FACTOR
Hugh Grant has starred in several of Working Title’s biggest hits, particularly the ones written by Richard Curtis. But recently, matters appear to have become strained. In 2008 he pulled out of the film Lost For Words, which had been scripted by Curtis’s brother and was never made, and last year he was said to have ‘exited’ from a mooted Bridget Jones sequel after script rows. Working Title denied Hugh had left the project but admitted the film had problems.
No comments:
Post a Comment