Film man Ben Latham-Jones plots new passport to stardom for Ealing studio

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/17/ealing-studios-cannes-revival

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Ealing Studios, the name behind Britain’s best-loved back catalogue of films, from Passport to Pimlico to Kind Hearts and Coronets, is stepping back into the frame, with a new boss, new money, and ambitions to change the landscape of the industry in Britain.

Speaking to the Observer before Sunday’s announcement of his new role at the top of the revived studio, producer Ben Latham-Jones outlined his plan to put a once-great national asset at the centre of the international film business.

“I am building a home for British creativity,” he said. “I have always loved seeing a story come together, and I think we are in danger of missing out on our own talent if we don’t give writers and directors somewhere to come where they can feel confident they will be listened to.”

The 38-year-old’s track record is one that could set him up as a potential movie mogul. With a reputation in America as a fixer, called in to sort out production and creative problems, Latham-Jones has worked with 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight, and helped to shape critical successes such as Sideways, Little Miss Sunshine, Walk the Line and The Devil Wears Prada.

“As a child I loved Passport to Pimlico and what we think of as ‘the lovable Ealing comedies’, but that was not all they made. Some of their films were outrageous and not cosy at all. I am not bringing back the Ealing comedy brand – there are generations that love those films and, of course, they are still known all over the world – but I am motivated by the fact that a younger generation of British film fans may well have heard of the American studios Sony and 20th Century Fox, but not of Ealing. I want to change that.”

Ealing Studios, founded in 1902 in west London, produced a succession of hits in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It was then run as a BBC production site and was revamped in 2000 as an independent film-making brand, producing the new St Trinian’s franchise.

On Friday in Cannes, Latham-Jones revealed details of his planned Ealing biopic of the opera singer Maria Callas. The film, which will star Noomi Rapace, is based on the book Too Proud, Too Fragile, by Alfonso Signorini, and will tell of the diva’s turbulent career and two-decade affair with Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Rapace, the Swedish star who made her name playing Lisbeth Salander in the films of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, is to be a key face for the reborn Ealing Studios. She is also scheduled to star in Vacation, a Swedish drama to be written and directed by a fellow Swede, Jesper Ganslandt.

Latham-Jones has already produced four films with Ealing – while he was setting up new funding for a bigger operation. These include a newly completed film about the singer Nina Simone, which stars Zoe Saldana and David Oyelowo, and The D Train, starring Jack Black, which was made for Sony and is out in Britain this summer. Also finished is Kids in Love, another acting job for supermodel Cara Delevingne, who stars alongside Bafta rising star award-winner Will Poulter.

Later this year, the Ealing brand will also target television, with a project in which Rowan Atkinson takes a serious screen role as Georges Simenon’s Parisian detective Jules Maigret in two feature-length films for ITV.

“The boundaries between television and film production are more than blurred now: they don’t exist. I see them as equal worlds,” said Latham-Jones.

The line-up of future productions, aside from the Callas biopic, includes Encounter, with a screenplay to be improvised by the actors and acclaimed director Dominic Savage, and Fishermen’s Friends. The latter is perhaps the most traditional Ealing project on his slate, being the true story of the surprise commercial success of an amateur singing group from Port Isaac in Cornwall.

Latham-Jones says he has raised finance for his reinvigorated studio by enthusing a group of private equity investors, not all of them British. A good friend to stars such as Cate Blanchett, the producer lives in a flat in Covent Garden, London, and has a great love of acting. But Latham-Jones is also a money man, who says he welcomes the appointment of John Whittingdale as the new secretary of state for culture, media and sport.

“It was a bold move, putting him in the job, but he is the right man. We get on well and he understands the significance of the creative industries in Britain now,” he said.

Latham-Jones added that because Ealing Studios can now make films independently, without joint finance deals, Britain’s other big players, Film4 and BBC Films, were welcoming the beefed-up operation. Crucial to any success, he believes, will be his hands-on approach, coupled with an unsentimental assessment of the right budget for the right film.

“I was on set most of the time for the four films we have just made. It is important to me to be involved day-to-day. I also think it is important to know what kind of film you are making and to get the finance right. In the past perhaps there has been an attempt to make every British film for every single kind of audience. Instead, we are going to judge who each film is aimed at. We have seen the success of a film for an older audience like Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, well, I think there is a similar gap for younger viewers, so that they don’t only have Marvel superhero movies to watch.”

Latham-Jones is taking over the production side of Ealing from producer/director Barnaby Thompson, but the two will continue to work together. Thompson said he was proud of Ealing Studios and happy to leave it “in Ben’s capable hands”. He added: “I have decided to focus my attention on being a film-maker full time. I want to concentrate on my upcoming directing projects.”

Alongside partners Harry Handelsman and Uri Fruchtmann, Thompson is to retain his shares in Ealing Studios Operations, the buildings and film facilities side of the business, which is thriving to the extent that Ealing Studios’ productions struggle to find space on the sound stages there. “Luckily, most of the productions ahead of us are being filmed on location.”

The first sign of the new identity of Ealing Studios will soon be visible. A new logo sequence has been filmed with music composed by Michael Nyman. Symbolically, swirling bright colours will gradually reveal the familiar Ealing name in its trademark typeface at the centre of the screen.