Outrageous outfits and gritty social assets: Inside the innovative UK campaigns for ‘Pillion’ and ‘Wasteman’

The battle for cinema audiences can be hard fought and dispiriting — especially for UK independent debut narrative features. Even pictures that attract the backing of the British Film Institute (BFI) or broadcasters BBC Film or Film4 and go on to secure a decent festival launch and/or awards nominations often struggle at the box office. In the past 12 months, UK and Ireland box office totals below £100,000 ($132,000) were reached by Focus Features’ Anemone, Film4-backed The Thing With Feathers and BFI-backed Brides, while the BBC Film-backed On Falling, released just over a year ago, likewise fell short of six figures. This quartet of titles all performed better than recent UK debut narrative features such as Lolli­pop, Dreamers and Rabbit Trap.

The longstanding challenges for UK indie features give the recent success for Picturehouse Entertainment’s Pillion (backed by BBC Film and BFI, and produced by Element Pictures) and Lionsgate’s Wasteman (produced by Agile Films and It’s All Made Up Productions) all the more reason to be celebrated. Combined UK and Ireland box office for the two 18-certificate films, which took contrasting approaches with their respective theatrical releases, exceeds £2m ($2.7m).

“When we first read the Pillion screenplay, we had conversations about the fact people could potentially perceive it to be a small LGBTQ+ movie,” acknowledges Picturehouse Entertainment head of acquisitions James Brown. But that is not how the distributor saw it. “We believed this film had a universal love story message that could transcend and connect with a broader audience,” says the firm’s managing director Sara Frain.

Picturehouse Entertainment opted to take a position against international sales, rather than just offer a minimum guarantee for UK rights, and boarded as executive producer on Harry Lighton’s debut feature, which tells the story of a shy traffic warden (played by Harry Melling) who enters a sub-dom relationship with a leather-clad biker (Alexander Skarsgard).

Brown, who has a producing background, was able to pitch Element on the deal. “It was about assessing the value of the UK rights, but then in acknowledgement of the fact that that was not going to close the finance of the film, how could we bring more money to the table?” he says. “We felt, based on the amount of money they’re missing and the fixed dates they have with Alexander Skarsgard, they could use some help.”

Javier Sotomayor, president of Picture­house owner Cineworld International, backed the move, allowing the film to proceed to production in summer 2024. Territory sales including to A24 in the US in October 2024 saw rapid recoupment.

Lionsgate UK made a similarly aggressive play for Cal McMau’s debut feature Wasteman, a prison drama starring David Jonsson and Tom Blyth, after head of acquisitions and co-productions Emma Berkofsky received the screenplay in April 2024. Neither the BFI nor a broadcaster was on board, and Lionsgate swooped for full UK rights from sales agent Bankside Films.

“A key thing for them, especially for a title with this level of Britishness, is to get a good, well-known British distributor on board to help with further sales,” explains Marie-Claire Benson, EVP and head of Motion Picture Group at Lionsgate UK. “[Bankside] hadn’t spoken to any of the public funders, so we were like, ‘We’ll take everything off your hands, please.’”

Joe Palmer, UK vice president of theatrical marketing, adds: “We were all hooked by the idea of a new, exciting director with a British indie movie that has multiplex audience potential — that is rare.”

Playful tone

On both Pillion and Wasteman, the early acquisition ahead of production paid dividends for the marketing materials. Lionsgate worked with creative agency Intermission on Wasteman, and found director McMau and lead producer Sophia Gibber to be welcoming and collaborative. “It is not common with a reasonably small-budget British indie film to be given the teaser trailer, teaser poster, character posters, pay-off artwork, main trailer,” says Palmer. “They did everything for us across key art, trailers, social [assets], behind-the-scenes. They did the lot, and we created a huge amount.”

“One of the things that’s unusual about Pillion as it pertains to being a debut,” says Brown, “is that it’s so funny. Often, first-time filmmakers will have laughs in the script, and then want to be taken seriously as filmmakers and pull it back in the edit. At the first screening of an in-­progress cut, we were howling with laughter. That was a turning point. It set the tone from the jump — let’s keep it playful and have a lot of fun.”

Picturehouse’s Frain adds: “It’s important for a distributor to be clear from the outset on a film’s positioning, and then stand firm. For the LGBTQ+ campaign, we focused it as a sexy, relat­able, authentic love story. And for the main campaign, we broadened it to be more of a universal love story, but with an edge. And it was humour all the way through.” Creative agencies Zealot and Posterhouse worked on different marketing elements.

Pillion begins and ends at Christmas, which gave Picturehouse another opportunity — with films as diverse as Die Hard, Gremlins, Carol, It’s A Wonderful Life and The Holdovers playing successfully each December to cinema audiences.

“When we showed the film to Carol [McKay], our director of programming, she was adamant this was a Christmas movie and we had to release it at the end of the year,” says Frain. “Pillion is going to be a Christmas cult classic, and it will come back every year, I’m sure.”

That insight speaks to Picturehouse’s dual role as distributor and an exhibitor with 25 UK boutique cinemas. “In a digital world, that allows us to really understand our customers, what they’ve seen in the cinema, what they are likely to see and target-market to them,” says Frain. “We see them when they walk through the doors, but also — via data — understand their behaviours. It’s a privileged position to be in to understand how audiences might respond to projects.”

Despite Pillion’s potential broad appeal, and a UK and Ireland box office target of £1m ($1.3m), the campaign leaned into the participation of the UK’s Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club, whose members play supporting roles in the film, and enlivened red carpets at festivals including Cannes and London. Cast members, especially Skarsgard, embraced the look. “It felt like every time Alexander appeared in public for this film, he was wearing something so outrageous that it lit up the internet like crazy,” says Brown. “That helps when you’re trying to build awareness.”

As with Pillion, Lionsgate embraced a dual positioning for Wasteman. “At its core, we knew that it was young men, 16 to 34, and it’s that kind of straight-down-the-line prison-gang thriller type of film,” says Benson. “We know who that audience is, and we felt it’s a multi­plex audience.” However, even at script stage, “We couldn’t ignore the fact it was so well written [by Eoin Doran and Hunter Andrews], it was so explosive off the page that we thought there’s a broader audience of cinephiles who might want to get behind Wasteman.”

That created a challenge. “There are two audiences the film appeals to, and that’s not a position you necessarily want [for marketing],” explains Palmer. “It requires treading a fine line to appeal to both sets of audiences without putting off the other.”

McMau, who has a background in music videos and commercials, had been inspired for his short Bossman by YouTube footage of inmates’ drug-fuelled revelry recorded on phones smuggled into prison. He brought the aesthetic to Wasteman. Lionsgate and Intermission did not use much of this footage for trailers supplied to cinemas, but leaned into it for the social-media campaign, winning strong traction.

“The phone footage stuff was the perfect balance between violence, drugs, camaraderie and boredom,” says Palmer. “It made very exciting assets. We created over 50 assets for promoting the film across socials, and it really helped.”

Support from lead cast was crucial for both films’ campaigns. “It was hugely helpful to have Tom and David supporting so many activations across all of their social channels,” says Palmer.

With Pillion, says Brown, “They had a wonderful experience making the film, and it showed in how everyone collaborated to get the best publicity positioning possible. That was the secret sauce.”

Picturehouse Entertainment opted to release Pillion via Warner Bros in late-November 2025, helping the film achieve bigger theatrical scale, and then engage audiences widely as one of the titles on offer for the UK launch of HBO Max on March 26. “Not that you’re looking for someone to rubber-­stamp your decisions, but the whole time we have been trying to position this as more than just a low-budget LGBTQ+ film, and now a legitimate studio has boarded the project,” says Brown.

Innovative approach

Pillion successfully straddled multi­plexes and boutique/indie cinemas, with a skew towards the latter, and achieved a 26% box office share in Picturehouse’s own cinemas. Conversely, Waste­man earned 75% of its box office from the UK’s three major circuits, Odeon, Vue and Cineworld. Lionsgate credits the BFI Escapes programme as a successful pre-­release activation, with 70% of attendees unaware of Waste­man before they were invited to see it. “Ninety percent of them would recommend it to friends and family, and it had an average rating of 4.5 out of five,” says Palmer. “It showed we were doing the right thing, which is to be confident, get it in front of new audiences that haven’t necessarily seen a British indie film like this before, because they’re going to love it.”

Picturehouse took the potentially risky decision to offer Pillion as a surprise film across several chains — for example, in Odeon’s Screen Unseen slot. A few walkouts resulted, but that only added to the frisson. “It’s always been a strategy that works well when we feel that a film has good word of mouth, and we felt confident,” says Frain. “We’d always wanted to position Pillion as a romcom, and it was getting fed back on social — it’s a domcom. At that point, you’re like, ‘Okay, this film is connecting.’ We started to feel more confident the audiences were going to come through, which, of course, they did.”

Pillion, with £1.14m ($1.5m) at the UK and Ireland box office, significantly outperformed the company’s recent UK debut feature successes such as Charlotte Regan’s Scrapper (£581,000/$766,000) and Harris Dickinson’s Urchin (£330,000/$435,000), as well as Mubi’s How To Have Sex (£390,000/$516,000). Wasteman, released on February 20, had reached £884,000 ($1.17m) at press time.

Benson sees Lionsgate’s recent run of releases — from Wasteman to global hit The Housemaid via UK indie drama H Is For Hawk — as demonstrating “a real level of versatility” and “a strong calling card for producers”.

Frain positions Picturehouse Entertainment in similar terms, while also emphasising the innovative dealmaking that helped Pillion cross the line into production. “We know it’s difficult to get independent films made,” she says. “When we see something exceptional, we want to come in early, support producers in practical ways, and then build the strategy to help the film reach the biggest audience possible.”

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