The Brit 50: spotlighting eight dynamic director- or actor-focused production companies

Complete Fiction

London-based Complete Fiction was launched in 2018 by former Big Talk Productions head Nira Park, together with filmmakers Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish, and former Big Talk exec Rachael Prior. Prior is creative director, overseeing the company slate, while Moonage Pictures’ Lawrence Cochran recently joined the team as senior creative executive.

“We just had the urge to start again,” Park explains of establishing the new venture despite the success they had enjoyed at Big Talk, where hits included Wright’s Shaun Of The Dead and Cornish’s Attack The Block. “It was this feeling of wanting to have a small boutique company and work back in the same vibe as when we started.”

Prior adds that the desire to “fold in” creative talents Wright and Cornish as business partners was another motivation for setting up the company, as well as the opportunities to work in television. The company’s TV slate is bigger than the film slate, which is more bespoke and focused largely on Wright’s and Cornish’s own feature projects.

Complete Fiction has just launched Wright’s new Stephen King adaptation The Running Man, starring Glen Powell and produced alongside Simon Kinberg’s Kinberg Genre for Paramount Pictures. Next year should see production begin on two long-awaited sequels. Cornish’s Attack The Block 2, being developed with Studiocanal and Film4, is gathering momentum – Cornish has delivered a second draft of the screenplay and Park says the sequel will be “significantly more expensive than its predecessor”. Wright’s Baby Driver sequel is also expected to shoot in 2026. 

On the TV side, due to air early next year is psychological thriller series The Undertow, starring Jamie Dornan and Mackenzie Davis and directed by Jeremy Lovering. It is adapted from Norwegian series Twin, and has been co-produced with Wiip for Netflix.

The four principals are “more or less” equal owners of the company, which remains completely independent – for now. Park and Prior acknowledge they are having conversations about “what is the right move for the company on the TV side to allow us to do what we want to do but remain competitive.”

Whatever happens, the company’s freewheeling indie spirit won’t change. “We have always been able to make everything, including The Running Man, in the way we made Shaun Of The Dead,” Park says. “We’ve just always managed to do our thing.”

Imaginarium Productions

Imaginarium Productions was founded by Andy Serkis and leading UK producer Jonathan Cavendish in 2011. Sister company Imaginarium Studios is a performance-capture service provider. In the early days, the two companies were a single unit, employing around 50 people, the majority on the tech side. The divisions separated in 2017 but remain closely affiliated, with the production outfit making both film and TV.

Serkis, currently in New Zealand working on The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum, which he directs and stars in, is heavily involved in all things Imaginarium. “He is either attached as director or actor or executive producer – he has a creative overview of the company as a whole,” says Will Tennant, joint managing director alongside Phil Robertson.

Recent TV projects include Prime Video’s The Girlfriend and Blood Cruise. Upcoming film projects include Debs Paterson’s Zero Proto­col starring Rebecca Hall, which Anton is selling; Secret Idol (working title), a K-pop spy thriller being made with South Korean outfit Artist Studio; and UK folk horror Lovesong, scripted by Sarah Morgan. “Being able to do both film and TV is a strength of ours,” says Tennant. “When there is a downturn in one industry, we can pivot to the other and vice versa.” 

It’s All Made Up Productions

Director Philip Barantini and executive producer Samantha Beddoe first met in 2019. Their collaboration began with 2021 one-shot film Boiling Point, co-written by Barantini and James Cummings, directed by Barantini, exec produced by Beddoe and starring Stephen Graham as a stressed-out chef. Barantini and Beddoe went on to set up their London and Liverpool-­based company It’s All Made Up Productions in 2022, and the film inspired a 2023 sequel TV series for the BBC.

The company flew out of the gates this year with Adolescence, a collaboration with Plan B Entertainment and Graham’s Matriarch Productions. The Barantini-directed four-part series has been a runaway success since premiering on Netflix, sparking political debates about the crisis in young masculinity.

Projects on the slate include a film adaptation of Annie Mac’s The Mess We’re In. Alongside the production slate, the team is also behind the Going Rogue podcast and runs the It’s All Made Up Acting Workshops in Liverpool. UK talent, production and promotion outfit Avalon took a minority stake in the company earlier this year.

Lammas Park

Steve McQueen-led Lammas Park was set up by the 12 Years A Slave Oscar-winning filmmaker with a view to elevating marginalised voices in the industry, and spans film, TV and branded content. Widows, the 2018 thriller directed by McQueen, was the company’s first feature. Lammas Park has produced further McQueen-directed projects including BFI London Film Festival (LFF) 2024 opening film Blitz, Cannes 2023 documentary Occupied City, BBC miniseries Small Axe and 2021 docuseries Uprising. The company, currently a team of four, also produced Eloise King’s LFF 2024 documentary The Shadow Scholars, and is in post on a feature documentary co-produced with BBC journalist Tom Brook about his life.

Left Handed Films

Left Handed Films was set up by actor, writer and producer Riz Ahmed in 2019. Former AMC executive Allie Moore joined as head of development and production in 2021, and the company is involved in both film and TV. Current projects include a contemporary, London-­set feature adaptation of Hamlet starring Ahmed, which premiered at Telluride and is being distributed internationally by Focus Features; and an untitled Prime Video comedy series on which he is the star, writer and co-­showrunner. Also set in London, it comes out next year.

Left Handed has 10-15 projects on its development slate. “We have a horror film in development with Universal, and a drama with a murder element set up at Net­flix on the TV side,” says Moore. “We love to play with different genres.”

The company is also partnering with the Obamas’ production outfit Higher Ground on an adaptation of British Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid’s bestseller Exit West, a fantastical love story with a migrant theme in which Ahmed plans to star.

Revolution Films

Revolution Films was set up by director Michael Winterbottom and producer Andrew Eaton in 1994, with the latter exiting in 2016. Revolution continues to develop Winterbottom’s features and TV dramas as well as selected projects from other directors. “It’s basically the two of us plus an assistant, a head of development and external accountants and lawyers,” says producer partner Melissa Parmenter.

Winterbottom-directed projects on the go include The Trip To The Northern Lights, the fifth season of the Sky travel series with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, which is in post, and a feature adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell To Arms starring Tom Blyth, which was developed with Fremantle and is in pre-­production. Winterbottom is also co-­directing Gaza Year Zero with Alef Multimedia in Gaza and Le Pacte in France.

Revolution is about to go into production on Carol Morley’s 7 Miles Out, a co-production with Cannon and Morley Productions, based on Morley’s autobiographical novel about growing up in the wake of a father’s death by suicide.

Sigma Films

Glasgow-based Sigma Films, founded by producer Gillian Berrie, director David Mackenzie and his actor brother Alastair in 1996, held the world premiere for David Mackenzie’s London-­set action thriller Fuze at Toronto International Film Festival in September. Sigma is developing further projects with the director. Berrie recently adapted crime novel The Last Thing To Burn by Will Dean. Also on the development slate is Hermit, an adaptation of the novel by Chris McQueer, about a young dropout who struggles to leave his bedroom. The company also has its own Glasgow production and post-production facility Film City.

Sigma’s projects have encompassed streamer films such as 2018’s Outlaw King for Netflix (directed and co-written by David Mackenzie) and Jon S Baird’s Tetris for Apple TV.

The company is also committed to nurturing up-and-coming Scottish talent. “Eight or nine years ago, we missed out on a generation of filmmakers [in Scotland] because there was no training and no money going into it, but it feels that’s been turned around now,” says Berrie. 

Thin Man Films

Founded in 1988 by Mike Leigh and the late Simon Channing Williams, Thin Man Films took its name because, as the latter’s obituary in a UK broadsheet put it, “both men were far from slim”. Thin Man Films produces only Leigh’s films and after one movie is completed, there is always another one bubbling away. Georgina Lowe is a director of the company, and produces all of the projects (independently, she has also produced TV series including Black Mirror and Sanditon). Potboiler Pictures’ Gail Egan exec produces Leigh’s projects independently.

The director’s most recent feature Hard Truths came out last year and received two Bafta nominations, for outstanding British film and best actress for Marianne Jean-Baptiste. As ever, news on Leigh’s next film remains under wraps, even to potential backers. 

• The Brit 50: the top independent film production companies in the UK