During Prime Minister Boris Johnsons outline to re-opening that was announced on 22nd February cinemas will be allowed to open their doors, maybe, in stage 4 from May 17th.

Sourced from BBC

This will be good news for the industry, and cinema goers who have not been able to see movies on the big screen since the end of last 2020 when Wonder Woman 1984 was the big new movie.

It is also good news for the cinema industry which is suffering during the latest lock down and many small independent theatres may have no choice but to close for good.

The bad news of course is that after 6 weeks of having to close their doors to the public it looks like there will still be another 3 months at least of shutdown to ensure the country keeps moving in the right direction.

Also with studios having to re-shuffle their schedules and many blockbusters having gone to streaming already there needs to be some confidence that people will return to cinemas.

There are films like Tom And Jerry, The Croods: A New Age, Mortal Kombat and the much delayed MCU movie Black Widow which is due on 7th May, a move for that is almost certain now.

What is more positive is that film like No Time To Die and Top Gun: Maverick can possibly stick to their release dates of October 8th and July 9th respectively.

This date is conditional of COVID-19 cases and deaths not spiking, but the UK has done a great job under the current lockdown and the vaccination programme is going really well so fingers crossed to light can be seen at the end of the tunnel.

Breaking: English cinemas set to reopen from May 17 in lockdown easing plan https://t.co/M5wALXoYN1 pic.twitter.com/ljK5SjhHpu

— Screen International (@Screendaily) February 22, 2021

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey holds firm at the top of the UK box office this week despite very strong competition from tsunami film The Impossible.

With a 3 day weekend gross of £4,075,781 The Hobbit stays put at the top of the UK box office for an amazing fourth week. The total gross for the Middle –Earth film is now just shy of £45 million, and is the 30th top film in the UK.

The Impossible is the highest new film at 2, starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts it's the true story of a family lost in the Boxing Day tsunami that happened in Thailand in 2004. With little publicity until recent weeks the film took a decent £ 4,034,470 over the weekend.

This time last year Tom Cruise was still at the top with Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol and Oscar winning film The Iron Lady about Margaret Thatcher's reign as British Prime Minister was the highest new entry at 3.

Five years ago I am legend was still at the top of the box office, and you had to look as far down as number 10 to get the highest new entry, Lust Caution, an Ang Lee direct film starring Tony Leung Chiu Wai.

Ten Years ago The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers wouldn't shift from the top of the box office which Star Trek Nemesis was the highest new film at 2.

Fifteen years ago Paul Verhoevens Starship Troopers was the top film in the country.

For the first time the UK box office surpass the £1 billion takings in a single calendar year, helped by big hits such as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, The Kings Speech and The inbetweeners, all British films.

The actual figure according The British Film Institute is £1.04 billion 5% up on 2010, this amounts to a staggering 171,600,000 tickets sold (more or less), a figure which is a 1.4% increase on the previous year. The large difference in spend to tickets sold seems odd considering ticket prices went down in 2011, but then with the 3D tax you start to realize where the extra comes from.

Films shot in the UK or financed in someway in the UK amounts to just over 36%, that's a staggering 24% up on the previous year, this is an incredible statistic, especially in the wake of prime Minister David Cameron claiming the UK needs to make more blockbusters that make money, go figure!

This year looks to be another big year for movies with some great Hollywood blockbuster due in the coming months which will certainly boost to cinema figures for 2012.

A report is due to be released next week suggesting that the UK should make more commercially successful films, this is after a year where the British film industry contributed £4 Billion to the UK economy.

Prime Minister David Cameron is to visit Pinewood Studios on Wednesday (11th Jan) and has said himself that he British film industry should support "commercially successful pictures", but in doing this does it mean film makers loosing their artistic integrity?

In my mind this begs the question, do film makers make films for person reasons, it may be to make art, to make a statement or because the maker has a story they just have to tell, and despite it's commercial success if its going to be seen and enjoyed or acknowledged by the public, despite how small that group might be, it's worth making the film. Or is the making of a film an industry and if the product won't make a profit then why bother to produce it? In reality the films, which make the money, are (generally) big blockbuster.

Last year Britain produced The Kings Speech, The Inbetweeners, Johnny English Reborn and finish off the Harry Potter series (which can arguably be credited to Britain), all successful films which made money at the box office and have continued to make money in the home market (DVD, Blu-ray, downloads). But outside of this there were plenty of films that were lower grossing movies that probably didn't make money.

The "independent" films that Britain produces are often what separates it, and forms the identity of the film industry, India and France also have massive films industries and can be identified by these films which are loved by people in their native countries as well as other nationalities. In the UK we love American (Hollywood) blockbuster for what they are, and it just so happens they make money, maybe it's the marketing push of millions of dollars but they make money, much of which is pumped back into the American economy.

Of course this is the attraction, American mainstream films make money the world over, British films tend to make money only in the UK, the marketing pounds aren't there to promote the film to the same extent abroad. Despite The Kings Speech which won Oscars doing well in the US, The Inbetweeners and Johnny English didn't.

It must be argues that if Britain makes more 'mainstream' films there is a fear of the British film industry just becoming a Little Hollywood, and although it's no bad thing to produce movies that make money (and hence having a larger audience) we shouldn't and can't stop making films which can be truly identifies as British and which probably wont make millions.