Pinewood celebrates 65th birthday

With the 65th anniversary of Britain’s Pinewood studios being marked by a theatrical documentary, A Celebration of Pinewood Studios, and a picture book, the Pinewood Story (Reynolds & Hearn), media mogul
Michael Grade, a co-owner of the studios has observed that they continue to attract Hollywood filmmakers, “because of the fabulous skill base that we have.” In an interview with the London Sunday Telegraph, Grade added, “The myriad craft skills that you need to create a movie are all abundant and of the highest quality in the UK.” Some of the U.S. studio films made at
Pinewood include all four Superman movies, Aliens and Alien 3, Batman, and The Phantom Menace. Moreover, Grade noted that filmmakers have no problem persuading Hollywood stars to make movies in London where they can “live in style, they’ve got privacy, they’ve got whatever they need. The morale on a picture is terribly important, and if the stars are happy and the director’s happy, by and large everybody’s happy.”