The Death of Robin Hood, starring Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer, Christmas Karma, Gurinder Chadha‘s (Bend It Like Beckham) musical take on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with Kunal Nayyar, Eva Longoria, Billy Porter, Hugh Bonneville, Boy George and many more, 500 Miles, horror titles such as The Scurry with Ella Purnell and The Dreadful, and Sunny Dancer were among the films touted during the first-ever True Brit Entertainment slate presentation in London on Wednesday.
Zygi Kamasa, CEO and founder of True Brit Entertainment and the former CEO of Lionsgate U.K. and Europe, opened the event with a look at the first 18 months of the company’s history and its accomplishments. “We are dedicated to backing independent British stories with the belief that all of our films will be strong commercial releases for the cinema,” he said. “We absolutely believe that audiences are craving more great British movies that do not necessarily need to be about huge budgets or scale, but are interesting, original, commercial, with great British characters, settings, and stories that they can go and see at the cinema.”
Kamasa also highlighted that the firm has already backed and invested in 13 British films, “10 of which have already been filmed, with three more due to start in the next few months.” And he added: “All of these films … represent over $125 million of U.K. production budgets, which, on the one hand, is small compared to the billions of dollars that the major studios or streamers may invest but it’s still one of the largest single investments in independent British movies by any one company in the last 12 months.”
The CEO also lauded the solid performance of the company’s first two releases, The Critic, a dark thriller set in 1930s London featuring the likes of Ian McKellen, Gemma Arterton, Mark Strong, Alfred Enoch, and Lesley Manville, and Marching Powder with Danny Dyer, an “outrageous comedy about addiction, violence, and happy endings.”
And he vowed that True Brit will put its money where its mouth is. “We intend to treat all of our films like blockbuster movies with innovative and bold national advertising campaigns and unmissable high-profile publicity drives using all of the local British talent that we are working with,” he said.
Chadha helped wrap up the event by showing well-received clips from Christmas Karma. “This is a British film from my unique, original point of view, and one that resonates with Dickens ‘ masterful statement on the human condition,” she explained to the crowd. “I think that’s much needed at the moment.”
Calling it “a magical, colorful, feel-good Christmas movie” with a soundtrack that “is banging,” she added: “We can’t wait to bring this film to the big screen. It’s made for the big screen.”
Chadha also lauded the film company. “As a British filmmaker for the last 30 years, it is absolutely warming my heart seeing all these films, these directors, and how Zygi and True Brit are putting the soul back into British cinema,” she said.
