Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent in The Duke
(Picture: handout)It’s a boom time for British film and TV production - and our insatiable appetite for streaming is driving it.
Last month, the British Film Institute reported a record £5.64 billion production spend across film and high-end television in 2021. That’s a £1.27 billion increase from pre-pandemic 2019 figures. £4.09 billion of that total was spent on TV series; within that, £737 million went to films made for streaming platforms. A few days later, Amazon announced a multi-million pound, decade-long deal with Shepperton Studios, meaning the streamer will be filming projects next door to their competitor Netflix, which previously announced plans to double its Shepperton production base last November.
