Canadian Jake Eberts founded Goldcrest in
1977, as a development finance company for feature film projects. Its first
investment was a modest £11,250 in Ken Loach's Black Jack (1979), a
box-office failure. Some years later, and in stark contrast, its final venture
as an independent company involved a massive investment of around £35 million in
three films - Revolution (UK/Nor, d. Hugh Hudson, 1985), The Mission (d. Roland Joffé, 1985) and
Absolute Beginners (d. Julien Temple, 1986). The films did share one feature with Loach's film - box-office failure - but the losses on the high-budget pictures brought Goldcrest to the brink of bankruptcy and it was sold to the Brent Walker combine in 1987. During the intervening years, with financial backing from the Pearson Longman media conglomerate, Goldcrest became a leading name in British cinema and a major source of production finance for British films. David Puttnam and Richard Attenborough joined the company's board as non-executive directors, and Sandy Lieberson was head of production for a brief period. After the success of Chariots of Fire (d. Hugh Hudson, 1981), in which Goldcrest had a modest investment, the company became closely identified with the renaissance of the British film with a number of its titles winning prestigious Oscars. It was involved in various ways, from modest development support to major production financing, in many important films of the period including Gandhi (UK/Ind, d. Richard Attenborough, 1982), Local Hero (d. Bill Forsyth, 1983), The Killing Fields (d. Roland Joffé, 1984) Cal (d. Pat O'Connor, 1984), The Dresser (d. Peter Yates, 1984), Dance with a Stranger (d. Mike Newell, 1984), A Room with a View (d. James Ivory, 1985), and
Hope and Glory (d. John Boorman, 1987).
Bibliography
Eberts, Jake and Terry Ilott, My Indecision Is Final (1990).
Tom Ryall, Encyclopedia of British Film
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