In October 2013, filming commenced on The Theory of Everything, the story
of the most brilliant and celebrated British physicist of our time, Stephen
Hawking, and Jane Wilde the arts student he fell in love with whilst
studying at Cambridge in the 1960s.
The Theory of Everything is produced by Working Title and distributed internationally by Universal Pictures International (UPI).
Trailers were screened on Working Title's website. The second featured puffs from influential critics at the New York Times, The Guardian, Huffington Post and Vanity Fair.
It was marketed as a 'feelgood' mainstream biopic / love story with a universal message of hope: "However bad life may seem, while there is life, there is hope."
Featurette on 'What is the theory of everything?' UK screen release New Year's Day 2015. Box Office: The Theory of Everything took a stunning £3.75m from a broad 532 cinemas, including £803,000 in New Year’s Day previews.
Worldwide Box Office takings:
$121,201,940
Nominated for 5 Oscars, one win.
CONTEXT Warner Bros’ The Hobbit topped charts with $15.3m (£9.76m) ; StudioCanal’s Paddington becomes distributor’s highest grossing
release of all time with over £30m. Also for StudioCanal, The Imitation Game added
$347,000 (£227,101) for $22m (£14.4m) after eight weeks in play. The
Alan Turing biopic is now the distributor’s second highest grossing film
of all time, having overtaken Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s $21.7m (£14.2m). Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: Mockinjay recorded biggest opening of 2014 to date with $19.8m (£12.65m), including previews.
Release (Wikipedia)
The Theory of Everythingpremiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2014,[25] where it opened in the official sidebar section, Special Presentations.[26][27] On 10 April 2014, Focus Features acquired the distribution rights to The Theory of Everything in the United States, with the plan of a 2014 limited theatrical release.[28] Shortly after, Entertainment One Films picked up the Canadian distribution rights.[29] The first trailer of the film was released on 7 August 2014.[30][31] On 8 October 2013, Universal Pictures International had acquired the rights to distribute the film internationally.[13] The film had a limited release in the United States on 7 November 2014,[32] expanded in successive weeks to Taiwan, Austria, and Germany,[33] ahead of a United Kingdom release on 1 January 2015, before being released throughout Europe.[34]
REMINDER about essay technique for the film industry question: 1. Highlight the key terms on your question paper. 2. Your first sentence: "I have studied the film industry".Then define the key terms. 3. Stop and think about how to express the topic sentence that starts each paragraph. If you get that right, the paragraph will write itself. 4. The topic sentence is likely to have one or more of those key terms in it. The successful answer is the RELEVANT answer. 5. Embed your own experience as you go. What trends are emerging? 6.
Cover the Hollywood film industry (Disney), the UK film industry
(Working Title) and microbudget / crowd sourced films (TIL, Web 2.0). 7. Think about global, international, national and niche audiences. 8. Conception > Production > Distribution > Exhibition 9. Conception means asking: what kind of films get developed? How does that depend on the size of the production company? 10. Production means asking: what are their production values? 11. Distribution means asking: in what ways did the film get marketed & distributed / reach audience's attention before release? 12. Exhibitionmeans asking: on what platforms can audiences see the film? 13. Terms like synergy, convergence, digitization, exchange will be used. For example, how is Disney a good example of a megafranchise that uses synergy?
How has digitization changed how audiences can get information about
films pre-release? Do audiences always want to consume films on mobiles
or laptops, even though convergence means
that they can visit film websites, watch trailers online, download
/stream, buy the musical soundtrack online? Why are certain types of
films being released on IMAX (the opposite of a small screen
experience)?