Harry Potter and Mr Bean gave UK cinema the necessary fillip last year, with box office takings from British films topping £1.65 billion ($3.3bn) worldwide.
LONDON: British characters Harry Potter and Mr Bean gave UK cinema the necessary fillip last year, with box office takings from British films topping £1.65 billion ($3.3bn) worldwide, an increase of more than 50 percent in 2006.
Figures from the UK Film Council show that 700 million tickets were sold for UK films last year across the globe. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", the fifth film in the series based on JK Rowling's books, was the top UK film internationally and "Mr. Bean's Holiday", the second film based on Rowan Atkinson's TV series, came second.
The UK Film Council said the last decade has also seen a 50 percent increase in UK box office takings. The most successful year for British cinema was 2005, thanks to "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of The Were-Rabbit".
In 2007, some 60 percent of people in UK said they went to the pictures at least once a year. The average price of a cinema ticket is now £5.05, and 75 percent of UK cinema screens are now in multiplexes. Last year UK had 3,514 screens, 74 more than in 2006, across 727 cinema halls.
The Guardian reported that UK actors took prominent roles in more than half of the top 200 films in the world since 2001. With parts in the "Lord of the Rings" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" trilogies, plus "Kingdom of Heaven" and "Troy", Orlando Bloom acted in eight of the top 200 films in the period, more than any of his British colleagues.
Some 170 foreign language films were shown in UK cinema halls in 2007, comprising 33 percent of total releases. Hindi was the most common language, but the most successful foreign language film last year was Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto", which was in Mayan.
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