Tom Parkin AS Media

What makes a film British?
Most people would define a ‘British’ film with reference to obvious cultural elements such
as: a setting in the UK or a focus on British people abroad; a predominantly British cast; a
storyline about some aspect of British life — past, present or future — or notably by, or based
on a work by, a British author. Recent examples include Billy Elliott, about a boy in North East
England, and Bend it Like Beckham, about a girl from West London, both portraying
particular social issues. The nationalities of scriptwriter, producer, director and, perhaps
especially, the ‘investment’ seem less obviously significant. However, both artistic and financial
considerations serve to complicate this issue.

Box Office in the UK

The opening gross for weekend the kings speech opened was £3.52 million this exceeded the expectations that the distributor momentum pictures had for the film. Other box office successes were Slum Dog millionaire which raised £1.83 million on its opening weekend. Also Calendar Girls  made £1.88m, and Pride and Prejudice gathered £2.53m. From this you can see that the Kings Speech compared to other film opening has impressed many and was said that 'it's clear The King's Speech has taken a leap forward' over other UK films.

Reviews: the film's reception

Overall the film has had good reviews from critics saying 'the film is a major achievement' its representation of historical events is accurate and well written . However some dispute some of the context in the film historical representation, such as The Telegraph says it is 'littered with errors' these seem to be continuity errors such as the king throwing his speech on the floor however seconds later it is in his hand again. And other mistakes  like including 'women wearing hosiery' when it wasn't invented yet.

Awards
The kings speech was nominated for 12 BAFTA's and won 7 of them. The film also got nominated for 12 Oscars of which it won four of them which were best director (Tom Hooper), best original screenplay (David Seidler) and best actor (Colin Firth). 


Finance 
Some of the budget cam from the UK Film alongside Prescience films who are a UK Film finance company. Harvey Weinstein in the USA also was involved with the financing. 

Production companies
It was a joint production by See-Saw films and Bedlam productions this means that two production companies were involved in the production of one film.