Since 1984, Working Title Films (WTF) has been a very small company within the industry, with only 42 staff members in the UK and 5 in L.A, thus the work force is kept minimal. 

 

They are one of the top 40 Production Companies in the UK, but remain the UK's pre-prestigious production company.  They are backed by Universal Studios and have a max budget of $35 million to spend on every new film project before consulting with Universal, thus the studio relies on WTF to deliver two-four films per year. 40-50 projects are usually in development at any time and their average amount to spend on development is approximately $250,000 - $500,000 per script.

 

Being owned by Universal, WTF sits under the 'Big Eight' umbrella when it comes to International Studios. Strictly speaking, the biggest Production Co-operations would go as follows:

 

• 20th Century Fox

• Walt Disney Studios

• Paramount Pictures

• Sony Pictures

• Warner Bros.

• Universal Studios

 

Therefore, these big production studios are connected to bigger and smaller companies. For example, Universal Studios:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Universal Studios owns a total of 67% of Working Title Films, but the uniqueness of their partnership is that WTF are allowed freedom to make their own creative decisions, despite being owned by a conglomerate. With this said, WTF have total autonomy creatively, but financially, Universal have the right to decline any of their projects, especially with a budget of only $35 million.

 

According to Bevan, whilst being independent producers they would develop a script, which only took about 5% of their time, then they would look for a director, which once again only took 5%, then 90% would be spent on making deals with different sources in order to finance those films. Due to no real structural plan, the company's films was suffering - WTF had only produced 10 films in the 80s before Universal bought them - and with Universal's help, they managed to provide more financial muscle for Working Title to produce bigger, better films - WTF had made 41 films in the 90s, creating more profit than before.

 

Working Title Films also have their TV division and do features such as London Spy (2015) for BBC 2, along with other great TV productions: Mary and Martha (2013) and About a Boy (2014) just to name a few.