Roll Britannia: Inside an indie empire

ONE bright day last fall, movie producer Tim Bevan, a strapping Brit in a down vest, barreled through the streets of Soho on a walking tour of some of the most hotly anticipated British films of the year.

It took just an hour.

That’s because Bevan, 49, speed-marched. In the London film world, there are no golf carts to jet around on, so Bevan strode in and out of buildings, past fields of rabbit warren offices, through editing bays. This is the cobbled-together fiefdom of the once obscure, now powerful Working Title Films, which Bevan and his partner, Eric Fellner, 47, run. In the parlance of Hollywood, they’re the Brian Grazers of England, the Jerry Bruckheimers of the British Empire, the producers at the top of the professional heap.

Located thousands of miles from film’s epicenter, they operate with less bombast than some of their American counterparts, but that doesn’t mean their heap isn’t sizable. Their films range from the oeuvre of screenwriter Richard Curtis, perhaps the keenest practitioner of romantic comedy working today (“Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill”), to “Bean,” starring the loopy klutz played by comedian Rowan Atkinson, to takes out of English history such as “Elizabeth,” to films that seem to rise from the American psyche such as “Dead Man Walking,” “United 93” and the upcoming blood-splatterer “Smokin’ Aces.” When the iconoclastic Coen brothers opt to write original scripts, it’s Working Title that produces them.

Still the leitmotif for Working Title’s long run is that the duo makes films primarily for the rest of the world. The United States is a big territory, but certainly not their most important one. “Bean,” for instance, made $45 million here and $192 million abroad; Curtis’ 2003 film “Love Actually” garnered $69 million here and an additional $185 million overseas. They have more than 80 films to their credit, with grosses topping $2.5 billion, and there’s nary a Hollywood-style, action-laden blockbuster on the list.

International gross now accounts for 50% to 60% of the total box office take and is expected to grow in the next few years as multiplexes continue to rise in such cinematically underserved environs as China and Russia. While Hollywood continues to churn out blockbusters, there’s increasing interest at all the studios in catering to the local tastes in the different markets around the globe. Sony and Warner Bros. have built operations in countries as diverse as France and China to make local language films, ones that can travel -- as the success of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” has shown.

Last week, a grateful Universal re-upped the duo for an additional seven years, with plans for Working Title to expand its slate to five films a year. They’re also to serve as talent scouts for the rest of the globe and help international filmmakers transition into Hollywood. The studio has been bankrolling their expanding empire since 1999 and releasing their films under Universal and its specialty label, Focus Features. The studio has granted them enviable autonomy: Bevan and Fellner can greenlight films under $30 million. That price tag might sound ludicrous to Bruckheimer, but it can perfectly accommodate a film such as 2005’s swoony version of Jane Austen’s “Pride & Prejudice,” which cost $20 million and grossed $120 million worldwide.

“They have a uniquely worldwide perspective,” says Universal Pictures Co-chairman David Linde. “To me, they’ve always been ahead of the curve. Everyone [is] talking about trying to become more involved with the international marketplace. Tim and Eric were talking about the global marketplace 20 years ago.”

Indeed, the world is their oyster. “If you’re looking for growth, it ain’t going to be inside America,” says Bevan. Even moviegoing tastes appear to have been affected by the political realignments triggered by 9/11.

The next day in their offices, a jet-lagged Fellner explains: “I think that European audiences would rather see a non-American film if they have the opportunity.” Conversely, Americans have grown more resistant to British fare -- unless it’s Harry Potter.

“To sell British films in America has been more difficult,” says Bevan. He and Fellner are sensing a “glass ceiling” for British films -- meaning that a film can expect to top out at around $50 million at the U.S. box office. “It was certainly noticeable in ‘02, ’03 and ’04. Culturally, the world has changed, hasn’t it?”

Elizabeth revisited

ON this brisk autumn day, Britannia rules as Bevan showcases Brit culture -- high and low.

First stop is “The Golden Age” cutting room, where weary Indian film director Shekhar Kapur, dressed all in black, takes a break from what appears to be mediation to show snippets from the film, a sequel to “Elizabeth” (1998), again starring Cate Blanchett. The duo is very cognizant of Helen Mirren’s recent HBO turn as the famed monarch. But Kapur says “their story of an older woman and a younger man” is inherently different from his version, which is about “power, the attempt to become divine.”

Kapur and Bevan watch the TV monitor as an intense and luminous Blanchett furiously dresses down the Spanish ambassador, whose country, she’s learned, has hatched a plot against her. “I choose to command the wind,” she rails against him.

“You think she can act?” jokes Bevan.

“At 6 a.m., she’s sitting in the makeup chair,” says Kapur. “She has her lines on her iPod and all day long she listens to it. She’s obsessive.”

Half an hour later, Bevan is ensconced in another editing room watching a humorous hommage to cop movies called “Hot Fuzz,” in which a hotshot city cop finds himself partners with a chubby, clueless policeman in a sleepy village. Carnage ensues -- or as its director, the elfin Edgar Wright, says, they “take a picture postcard village and turn it into some Joel Silver action movie.”

“Annihilate it,” laughs Bevan.

The 32-year-old Wright, who did a cleverly idiosyncratic take on zombie movies with “Shaun of the Dead,” recently showed the clip of “Hot Fuzz” at Comic-Con, “the genre’s Cannes film festival,” says Wright with tons of “geek pride. I say that as a geek myself.”

Next up is “Mr. Bean’s Holiday,” in which the daft comic with the soulful black eyes “decides to go on holiday in France,” explains Bevan. “He only speaks three words of French -- oui, non and grazie.” Atkinson often lurks in the editing room, although today it’s only director Steve Bendelack who’s there. He’s working on a scene in which Bean upsets a shoot for a yogurt commercial set in the Nazi era. Willem Dafoe plays the director, who Bendelack explains is “a cross between Ridley Scott and Michel Gondry. He’s arty and full of it.”

Bevan wraps up the tour on a highbrow note, stopping by to see director Joe Wright, who’s editing “Atonement,” based on the Ian McEwan magisterial novel. Set in the years leading up to World War II, McEwan tells the story of a bright, hyper-imaginative 13-year-old who misconstrues a servant’s son’s involvement with the child’s older sister and accuses him of a terrible crime.

“Christopher Hampton wrote the script, but Joe possessed it,” says Bevan, who met the 34-year-old Wright when he came to pitch himself as director for “Pride & Prejudice.”

Wright is something of a walking human charm bomb -- a handsome and disheveled English schoolboy in chinos and a sweater. Bevan and his partner, Fellner, pride themselves on being able to give what their filmmakers need, and not more, though Wright seems eager for Bevan’s input.

He plays for Bevan a moody and mysterious Brian Eno song that he wants to use over the end credits. “The lyrics are perfect,” says Wright.

“We should definitely try it,” says Bevan.

“I listened to it every day during the shoot,” explains Wright. “It was the track we played the day we did the sex scene.”

Wright shows the opening sequence of the movie with the purposeful 13-year-old dreaming up a play with her relations and a later romantic sequence between Keira Knightley, who plays the older sister, Cecilia, and her lover, played by the rising young actor James McAvoy. “I’m just four weeks in,” says Wright, who has to present a first cut soon.

“We’ll be collaborative, “ says Bevan.

“I find the process of a discussion group quite useful,” admits Wright. “It’s the beginning of trying to read an audience, but the people are all on your side.”

As Bevan walks outside, he sighs, “I love these little rooms where there’s magic going on.”

Partners in step

A couple of months later, Bevan and Fellner are splayed out in their modern L.A. offices, looking jet-lagged. In shorthand, Bevan is the dog -- waggish, hearty, impulsive -- and Fellner, the cat -- lean, sinewy and slightly mysterious. They both started out as music video producers in the ‘80s and segued into independent production, with Bevan producing “My Beautiful Laundrette” and Fellner opting for “Sid and Nancy.” Now, they both live in the multicultural Notting Hill section of London, which they immortalized in their Hugh Grant-Julia Roberts romantic comedy, “Notting Hill,” with their respective girlfriend/spouse and batches of kids.

Set up as business partners in 1992 by Michael Kuhn, then chairman of Polygram Films, they operate nearly 15 years later with the relaxed rhythms of an old married couple. It’s a marriage no doubt helped by the fact that they supervise different projects. “That way, one plus one equals three,” explains Fellner, “whereas if we both do every project, one plus one equals one and a half.” But they make all major decisions jointly.

They’re here to support “United 93,” their film about the plane that crashed in the farmlands of Pennsylvania on 9/11, which is getting a best director award from the L.A. Film Critics Assn. British director Paul Greengrass approached them about the idea in 2002, but they demurred, saying emotions were still too raw. When they went ahead with the film in 2005, this group of Brits was still the first to make a major motion picture about 9/11, an event that many Americans were loath to touch.

As it’s the new year, Bevan and Fellner are touching bases in L.A., visiting talent agencies, laying out their projects for the upcoming year, including “Frost/Nixon,” based on the celebrated Peter Morgan (“The Queen”) play staged in London, which will be directed by Ron Howard. They come to America to look for actors and directors but not material, which is part of their strategy.

“In England, there’s not really a movie business, so you have to be pretty proactive in terms of going out and finding [material], looking for ideas. Here it’s difficult to do that, because people [i.e. agents] are chucking crap at you all the time,” says Bevan. “So you’re very reactive. Because we have that proactive motor, we come at stuff in a slightly different way.”

There’s also the unofficial Working Title brain trust, comprising many of the major British writers and directors who’ve emerged in the last two decades, including Stephen Frears, whom Bevan calls his godfather in the movie business; “The Hours’ ” Stephen Daldry, whom they gave an office and financed a short film for when he was trying to jump from directing theater; and Curtis.

Bevan found the financing for Curtis’ first film, “The Tall Guy,” which “didn’t do well” -- but somehow, two years after it was finished, “a royalty check for, like, 100,000 pounds fell in my lap.

“But stupidly -- as I needed the money, because we were completely bankrupt -- but for some reason honesty got the better of me that day....”

“Not that day. Every day,” interjects Fellner.

There were profit participants on the film, so Bevan sent Curtis a check for 25,000 pounds, a gesture of good faith that led to a long working relationship which Bevan describes as “symbiotic ... he is involved in a lot of what we do.” Curtis also introduced the pair to Atkinson, his college buddy, with whom he created the character of Bean.

For up-and-coming “Smokin’ Aces” director Joe Carnahan, arriving at Working Title was a welcome shock after he’d briefly been slated to direct “Mission: Impossible III,” one of those huge studio juggernauts with many masters. He was once arguing with Fellner -- his designated producer -- over some issue when “Eric said, ‘Listen, I will always back you up. I may disagree with you. I might fight you tooth and nail, but when it comes out in the wash, you always have my unconditional support.’ I think that’s rare as a quality as it applies to Hollywood and this business.”

Wright recalls when he first came to pitch them his vision for “Pride & Prejudice.” “I was terrified. In London, Working Title is the most powerful production company there is. I sweated a lot, but they seemed to respond to my enthusiasm and they let me talk a lot. A lot of producers are interested in hearing their own voices. That wasn’t the case. They let me rattle on and picked out the things they liked and gently quashed the things they didn’t like. They’ve got enthusiasm. They didn’t play it too cool.

“They’ve got a naive soul in a way,” says Wright. “They’re not naive in business, but creatively there’s an openness to stories and emotions. They’re affected by the stories they’re telling. They’re not just businessmen.”

Unlike some producers, Bevan and Fellner generally don’t scare creative people. Universal is hoping it can use the duo’s laid-back accessibility to conquer the rest of the world, including the non-English-speaking countries. In the new deal, Working Title is to scout filmmakers in countries such as Germany and Spain to make native-language films in their native countries -- all under the Universal rubric. They’re also to provide a comfy, familiar way station for foreign talents who might want to make films in America but “who are frightened of Hollywood,” says Bevan. “I think that’s where we may be helpful. Other filmmakers understand that we are an independent in a studio situation. We can help people make that jump.”

rachel.abramowitz@latimes.com