Tony Earnshaw: Through recessions and wars, the movie industry just keeps on going

Production at studio factories like Pinewood, on the outskirts of Slough, is booming. There are three major productions on the floor right now including Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. So some people obviously have the dosh to make it all work. And if demand is there, movies will be made.

It was all very different in the late 1970s and throughout the 80s. Back then the British film industry more or less flatlined. Once prolific outfits like Hammer crashed out of the market and the Americans fled back to the sunshine and relative security of the West Coast. The UK, once a thriving hub of intelligent, quality product, was left licking its wounds and remembering what once had been.

Pinewood Studios in the 80s and early 90s was a shadow of its previous self. Hundreds of staff were made redundant and the glory years appeared to be over. Flash forward to 2011. Britain is limping through a time of austerity and yet big movies with big directors, big stars and even bigger expectations are being made. Prometheus is a companion piece to Scott’s 1979 Alien. It’s not a prequel, they say, though everyone I’ve spoken to wants it to be. And, given that it’s been touted for several years, this is one sci-fi extravaganza seemingly everyone wants to see.

The fact that it’s been green-lit as the world struggles with a global recession hints at hard-boiled producers’ confidence in the project’s cult appeal. Ridley Scott is alleged to have demanded a budget of $250m – a figure that was shaved back by 20th Century Fox. Yet this is still likely to be the event movie of 2012.

I am reminded of the output of film during the war. Hollywood, so distant from the events in Europe and the Pacific, kept production going and delivered everything from Casablanca to Mildred Pierce. In Britain the home fires were kept burning despite the Blitz and the doodlebugs. Why did it happen? Because there was a need. People needed respite, a break from reality. Seventy years on the scenario is markedly different but the need remains.

What’s more, 250 million bucks is not a lot when one considers the global marketplace for a mega movie like Prometheus. Fox will recoup its budget in a month or two. And that cash will come from you and me. So while some of us might be struggling, the movies are not. Like it or lump it, blockbusters will exist as long as there is demand. And there will always be demand.