HandMade Films
Main article: HandMade Films
In 1973 Peter Sellers introduced Harrison to Denis O'Brien. Soon after, the two went into business together.[320] In 1978, in an effort to produce Monty Python's Life of Brian, they formed the film production and distribution company HandMade Films.[321] Harrison explained: "The name of the company came about as a bit of a joke. I'd been to Wooky Hole in Somerset ... [near] an old paper mill where they show you how to make old underpants into paper. So I bought a few rolls, and they had this watermark 'British Handmade Paper' ... So we said ... we'll call it Handmade Films."[320]
Their opportunity for investment came after EMI Films withdrew funding at the demand of their Chief Executive, Bernard Delfont.[322] Harrison financed the production of Life of Brian in part by mortgaging his home, which Idle later called "the most anybody's ever paid for a cinema ticket in history."[255] The film grossed $21 million at the box office in the US.[320] The first film distributed by HandMade Films was The Long Good Friday (1980), and the first they produced was Time Bandits (1981), a co-scripted project by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin.[323] The film featured a new song by Harrison, "Dream Away", in the closing credits.[324] Time Banditsbecame one of HandMade's most successful and acclaimed efforts; with a budget of $5 million, it earned $35 million in the US within ten weeks of its release.[324]
Harrison served as executive producer for 23 films with HandMade, including Mona Lisa, Shanghai Surprise and Withnail and I. He made several cameo appearances in these films, including a role as a nightclub singer inShanghai Surprise, for which he recorded five new songs.[325] According to author and musicologist Ian Inglis, Harrison's "executive role in HandMade Films helped to sustain British cinema at a time of crisis, producing some of the country's most memorable movies of the 1980s."[326] A series of box office bombs in the late 1980s caused HandMade to cease operations in 1991; three years later, the company was sold.[327]
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