REPORT: U.K. BOX OFFICE SET RECORD IN 2010

The 2010 total box office may have been down slightly in the U.S., but it rose 2 percent to $1.718 billion in the U.K., setting a record for the second straight year, the U.K. Film Council, which has been marked for extinction by the Cameron government, said Thursday. As reported by Britain’s Guardian newspaper, the Film Council, in its last annual report, noted that film production in the U.K. was up 8 percent to a record $1.844 billion, even though the actual number of films produced in the U.K. dropped to 119 from 144 during the previous year. In a statement, Tim Cagney, the Film Council’s managing director, said: “These figures … underline the vital contribution that film makes to Britain’s cultural and economic fabric.”