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Americans are flocking to be entertained UK-style, reports John Harlow in Los Angeles

BRITISH film makers, video game designers, rock stars and television personalities are topping the charts compiled by America’s entertainment industry this summer, only five years after cultural exports from the UK appeared to be in the doldrums.

Thanks to two pairs of British brothers who are behind the new Batman film and the video game Grand Auto Theft IV - and the popularity of figures as diverse as Coldplay, the rock band, and Gordon Ramsay, the foul-mouthed chef - Britons have returned to the ascendancy.

Experts are divided over whether the number of British figures at the top of the US box office rankings, television ratings, pop charts and video game bestseller lists is a flash in the pan or a harbinger of further success. What is not in doubt is the huge amount of money being made.

This weekend attention will be focused on Christopher Nolan’s second Batman film, The Dark Knight, which is expected to earn back its £70m budget in its first three days in the cinema. The film lit up cash registers during its midnight American debut, stealing away with a record $66.4m (£33.2m) from 3,040 theatres, distributor Warner Bros said yesterday.

According to Variety, the film will enter the record books with one of the most successful opening weekends at the box office. Nearly every seat this weekend across the United States was sold out in advance.

Although The Dark Knight was bankrolled by Hollywood, it was directed by Nolan, 37, who cut his teeth making films with his father’s Super8 camera at Haileybury school near Hertford. It was written by Jonathan, his younger brother.

The film stars Christian Bale as Batman alongside the British actors Gary Oldman and Michael Caine, plus Heath Ledger, the Australian star, as the Joker, his final role before he died at 28 of a drug overdose.

In the video games sales charts, Grand Theft Auto IV - created by Rockstar, the Scottish company - remained No 1 last week on Microsoft’s Xbox’s online game service.

Worldwide the game has made $1 billion (£500m) this year, more than any other. Sam and Dan Houser, the brothers behind the franchise, have been described as “the richest men you have never heard of”.

“Older people underestimate how lucrative British video games have been in the US since the first Lara Croft: Tomb Raider a decade ago,” said a British government export official.

Coldplay are selling 100,000 copies a week of their album Viva la Vida in America, generating about $1m a week for the band and EMI Records - not to mention a sold-out tour that reached Los Angeles last week to rapturous critical acclaim.

Five years ago British musicians hit an all-time low with a 1.7% market share of American record sales. This year, according to estimates from the British Phonographic Institute, it will rise to nearly 10%. Singers such as Leona Lewis and Duffy are also in the Billboard Top 20.

Ramsay’s American version of Hell’s Kitchen has topped the Nielsen ratings chart among viewers aged 18-49, the most sought after by advertisers.

Babak Zafarnia, director of the New York-based Levick Strategic Communications, which advises television programme makers, said that Ramsay and Simon Cowell, of American Idol, were stars because they said things that Americans were too polite to utter.

“Gordon Ramsay is a phenomenon,” he added. “We like to watch him so we can count how many times his language is bleeped out every minute. There has never been anything like him on the US entertainment scene.” Peter Morris, chairman of the Los Angeles chapter of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta), said British formats for variety shows such as American Idol (based on Pop Idol) and Dancing with the Stars (based on Strictly Come Dancing) had been hugely successful.

“Over the past five years Americans have grown used to exotic British accents, some very different from the David Nivens and James Masons of the past,” he said.
BRITS TOP US CHARTS

FILM BOX OFFICE PREDICTIONS
1 The Dark Knight

2 Mamma Mia!

3 Hancock

AMAZON-SOUNDSCAN US POP BESTSELLERS
1 Coldplay - Viva la Vida

2 Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III

3 Camp Rock - Original Soundtrack

NIELSEN TV RATINGS (18-49 DEMOGRAPHIC)
1 Hell’s Kitchen

2 Wipeout

3 The Bachelorette

BESTSELLING VIDEO GAMES IN US 2008
1 Grand Theft Auto IV

2 Wii Fit

3 Guitar Hero - Aerosmith

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/