The changing structural and economic landscape of the film industry in the 1970s inevitably impacted on the provision of film finance. The major development during the decade was the shift from the traditional model of producers raising their finance against the security of a guarantee from one of the major British or American distributors that had prevailed since the 1940s to a new model based on the pre-sale of distribution rights on a territorial basis. This was largely an outcome of the inability of the two main British distributors, Rank and EMI, to fill the gap created by the retrenchment of the major Hollywood studios in the early 1970s. Another consequence of these developments was the emergence of new players in the field of film finance. In particular, the early 1970s saw an increasing presence by merchant banks as providers of equity capital for film production. As a spokesman for the banking house Samuel Montagu – which backed a consortium involving David Frost's production company Paradine Productions and the Norton Simon talent agency of New York – explained: ‘This is our first venture into film finance. Like a lot of merchant banks we are approached from time to time to put up money for films. So far our answer has always been “No” because we did not know enough about it. This idea takes a lot of the risk out of it because we will only offer a commitment provided the film is pre-sold.’

To some extent the changing fiscal landscape of the British film industry reflected developments in the United States. The losses sustained by the major studios on production in the late 1960s brought about a radical restructuring of film finance. Hitherto the studios’ production programmes had been funded from their rolling box-office revenues and lines of credit with commercial banks: in the early 1970s this gave way to a model based on the pre-sale of distribution rights (including both theatrical and television) and raising finance from ‘outside’ providers.