British independent cinema enjoys record box office numbers

SUCCESS stories such as The King’s Speech and The Inbetweeners have helped independent British movies enjoy record box office receipts.

Figures released by the British Film Institute (BFI) show they accounted for 13.5 per cent of the £1.4 billion spent at the UK box office in 2010.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, the finale of the teenage wizard’s adventures, was the highest earning film of 2011 pulling in £73 million at the box office in the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

The next most successful were The King’s Speech and The Inbetweeners which earned £45.6 million and £45 million respectively.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and The Hangover 2 rounded off the top five biggest earners.

The figures also reveal that more money than ever before was spent on film production in the UK in 2011 - £1.26 billion - but the total number of UK films produced with budgets of £500,000 and more fell to 71 from 78 in 2010.

BFI boss Amanda Nevill said: “Film is at the very core of Britain’s cultural life and today’s figures show that the appetite for cinema-going across the UK is as healthy as ever.”