Star Wars: The Last Jedi arrives in cinemas at a time when the British film industry is booming, according to official figures.
Helped by generous tax reliefs, the film and TV industry contributed £7.7bn to the economy in 2016 – an 80% jump in five years.
The data from the Office for National Statistics underlined the importance to the UK film industry of a series of blockbuster movies – including the James Bond films starring Daniel Craig and the Star Wars franchise, which has been filmed at Pinewood studios.
After years in the doldrums, the ONS said there had been a marked pick-up in revenues from both production and distribution since the late 2000s.
Production, the preparation and shooting of films and TV programmes, contributed more than £2.5bn to the economy in 2016, while distribution, which includes licensing and managing rights, accounted for £3.5bn – a threefold increase since 2008.
The ONS said growth in post-production (editing, graphics, sound and visual effects) and projection (showing films in cinemas) was less dramatic, but still significant. There had also been spin-off benefits to the economy from advertising, set design, catering and tourism.
“The Creative Industries Tax Reliefs, introduced initially for film in 2007 and later expanded to support high-end TV, video games, animation and children’s programmes, appear to have played a major part in attracting big-budget productions to the UK,” the ONS said.
It added that the tax relief allowed film production companies to claim a cash rebate of up to 25% of the money they spend making the film in the UK (up to a maximum of 80% of the film’s core expenditure).
Films have to qualify as British to obtain tax relief. This requires them to pass a “cultural test” based on how much of the story, setting, production and crew are British (or from the European Economic Area), or be an official co-production from a country which has a reciprocal agreement with the UK or through the European Convention on Cinematographic Co-production.
The ONS said the British Film Institute had certified almost 2,000 films in this way.
• Follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk, or sign up to the daily Business Today email here.
