‘Monty’ Keeps Getting Fuller

In America, “The Full Monty” is regarded as a triumph of the underdog--a charming little low-budget British film that easily exceeded box-office expectations. But here, it is something else again.

In Britain, the film, a Fox Searchlight project with a mere $3.5-million budget, has already become the highest-grossing U.K. production ever, outstripping “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” the previous record holder. In 11 weeks it has grossed some 35 million pounds (about $56 million), an astonishing figure for Britain. In the next few days it will surpass “Men in Black” as the highest-grossing movie in Britain this year.

And signs are that toward the end of this month, box office for “The Full Monty” will exceed 37 million pounds--more than last year’s blockbuster “Independence Day,” another Fox movie. If it achieves that target, “The Full Monty”--a story of five redundant steelworkers from the north of England who turn to exotic dancing as a means of income--will be the second-highest grossing film ever in Britain, behind only “Jurassic Park.”

The rest of the world seems to be catching on to “Monty” mania, too; its worldwide box-office total passed $100 million Friday.

The film is No. 1 in Australia (where it easily beat out the expensive Hollywood sci-fi thriller “Contact” in its opening week), and is doing terrific business in countries like France, Spain and Switzerland.

The surprise success of “The Full Monty” has even gone some way to dispelling the gloom on the Fox lot, where many bigger films have recently bitten the dust.

Not bad for a film from Fox Searchlight, the division of the studio that concentrates on low-budget or art-house projects.

“I’m not going to tell you we thought ‘The Full Monty’ would be as big as it has turned out,” said Peter Dignan, managing director of Fox UK. “But we saw it as a breakthrough movie. We thought it could gross 8 million to 10 million pounds in the U.K., and we geared up our marketing to reach that point.” The film has now grossed four times that amount in Britain.

The script was brought to Lindsay Law in December 1995, the month he took over as head of Fox Searchlight. Law already knew the producer of “The Full Monty,” Uberto Pasolini; they had worked together on another independent film, “Palookaville.”

“When I read the script, I thought it was thoroughly original and enjoyable,” Law recalled. “Our trick is to find something different from anyone else, and with this script you smiled even as you read it. The only thing that wasn’t on the page was the triumphant ending, which sends audiences out giggling.

“I trusted Uberto, who was working with a first-time feature director, Peter Cattaneo. Then Peter had a short at the Sundance festival [last year], where I met him and liked him. “We didn’t put pressure on them to fill the cast with hot young English stars, and that’s what allowed the film to happen so swiftly. Peter wanted real Everyman types--and that’s what’s been responsible for its success. There’s something for all of us in at least one of those five characters. People who are embarrassed by their bodies can relate, and so can people who feel they are lacking in grace, or have ever gotten into financial difficulties.”

The film was shot last year around Sheffield, a steel city in the north of England. By all accounts it was not an entirely happy experience--Robert Carlyle, its lead actor, was not convinced the film would work, and in Britain at least had little to say about it during press interviews. “That’s the problem about films with a $3.5-million budget,” said Law. “There’s never as much time as anyone would like.”

Still, he was enthusiastic enough about the film to screen it in the world section of this year’s Sundance Film Festival. “We decided the film is its own best marketing tool,” Law said. “At Sundance, our publicists were dragging journalists off the slopes to come and see it.” Fox Searchlight workers also plastered the town with a teaser poster campaign that played upon the film’s enigmatic title.

Law and his team debated whether to retain the title, which means “going all the way;” the five men hold out the promise that they will strip completely during their dance routine. In the British press, letters columns have run lengthy debates about the meaning and origin of the phrase; did it start with the full English breakfast favored by British World War II war hero Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, popularly known as “Monty”? Or was it a reference to the three-piece demob suits British soldiers received after that war? The debate remains unresolved.

Law showed “The Full Monty” to Fox’s international executives at the ShoWest convention in Las Vegas in February, where, he says, “it was put to everyone that they should pump up the troops. For instance, in France they had wanted to open it small, but we said, ‘Are you kidding?’ France has the highest unemployment rate in Europe. Audiences will relate. So they’ve opened it bigger, and now it’s a big hit.”

It became Britain’s No. 1 film from its opening weekend and has stayed in that position since. In that time it has fended off opposition from several major Hollywood movies--”Air Force One,” ’Conspiracy Theory,” “Hercules,” “My Best Friend’s Wedding”--and more recently, “L.A. Confidential,” which has attracted the most unanimous glowing reviews of any film opening in Britain this year.

Dignan has received reports that theater audiences in Britain, who are normally more restrained than Americans, have been routinely applauding “The Full Monty.”

“The Full Monty,” which is rated R, has become the most successful Fox Searchlight film based on U.S. box office alone; it has grossed more than $28 million, compared with the previous Fox Searchlight record of $10.5 million for Edward Burns’ “The Brothers McMullen.”

“The film has been great for Searchlight,” Law said. “There were people [on the Fox lot] who said at first, ‘Why are you spending so much money marketing that?’ But our marketing and distribution people believed in it from Day 1. It’s a good reminder that in the film business, anything can happen.”