Cameron McCracken is Managing Director of Pathé UK & has been Executive Producer on titles such as The Queen, Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours & The Iron Lady. I sat down with him recently – here’s what he said…
What was your first job in the film industry & how did you get to where you are now?
I had read law at university and had also done a lot of acting. I was convinced I would become a lawyer that worked in theatre. I ended up working at a law firm where the choice was working in television or in film. And I decided to focus on the latter. So I’ve never been out of the film industry since I was 24.
Having worked as a lawyer in London, Paris and Rome, I decided that I wanted to be a producer. I had decided that I could do it better than the people I was advising, not realising quite how difficult it is. After a couple of years as an independent producer, and having made four films, I was headhunted to join British Screen (pre-cursor to the current British Film Institute) as the Director of Business Affairs. I was there for three years and then I was headhunted by Pathé and I’ve been here ever since (twelve years).
What do you think is the recipe for a successful film?
There is no formula because if there was a formula there’d be no film that would fail. Every movie is a prototype. You can never know what is going to capture the public mood. Inevitably your personal taste informs the sorts of movies that you look to acquire, develop & produce but that has to be informed by commercial smarts. There is no point falling in love with a script if you know the film can never be financed because the subject matter and/or director and/or cast will have insufficient appeal to an international audience to enable the cost of the film to recoup.
Is there a specific type of film that Pathé look to produce? Artistic films? Commercialised films?
You never set out to make a film that is not commercial. What interests me are those films for which there is a demonstrable pre-existing public appetite whether because of the subject matter (eg. based on a best-selling novel or a historic character) or because of the identity of the director or actor. For example, with The Iron Lady what made that film pop for the international audience was a superstar (Meryl Streep) playing an icon (Margaret Thatcher).
How difficult is it to compete with Hollywood productions?
The answer is ‘impossible’, so don’t. We can’t compete with their thrillers and action movies – we can’t afford the huge budgets – nor with their glossy star-laden rom coms. But what we can do is everything else – the dramas and the comedies. With respect to the former, because the Hollywood system often generates less interesting roles, A-list actors are willing to take pay cuts to work in British films.
Since the success of a film such as Slumdog Millionaire, is that now the marker for what you make?
It’s a hits-driven business. You have to have a hit (around £10m at the UKBO) every year or so in order to sweep up all the losses. But a phenomenon such as Slumdog or Kings Speech may only happen once in a lifetime. The business model for any company that is in this sector long-term, is that you should design the financing of your movies to ensure that you make relatively modest profits and relatively modest losses on your films in the expectation that every couple of years a film will pop and become a hit. You should therefore always spread your risk which means partnering with co-investors. You will have to give away upside but you will also protect your down-side.
What attracted you to Long Walk to Freedom?
Fifteen years ago I had met the producer, Anant Singh who had just optioned the book from Nelson Mandela. When I read the script I was blown away by the sweep of the story and the power of the man. I was convinced that a truly inspirational film could be made and that the talent assembled was perfect: Idris Elba and Naomie Harris as the Mandelas and Justin Chadwick to direct.
How important is the political message of this film to you as a Producer? How are you hoping for it to be received in South Africa?
The film is not political in that sense. It’s the depiction of a real man who happens to be a good man. Running through the whole film is a heart-breaking love story between Mandela and Winnie. The human cost of his moral choices was huge – but he refused to make any concession. It’s what makes the tone of the film so triumphant.
What advice would you give to a young producer today?
The only business model that works as a producer is to find a director that financiers want to back, and never let that director go! Great directors are as few and far between as great writers and painters (or great producers for that matter) – they will always work (and you will always produce) because audiences will always want to hear what they have to say. If you have no regular source of production you are pushed towards a hand-to-mouth existence as you try to get one project at a time off the ground. That takes time, and time is not on your side if you do not have a regular income.
Last question, which film would you take to a desert island with you and why?
It’s a Wonderful Life. Reassuringly optimistic and will remind me of snow.
‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom‘ is set for a 2013 release in the UK
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