The story
Pinewood Studios was built on the estate of Heatherden Hall, a large Victorian country house which was purchased by Canadian financier and Member of Parliament (MP) for Brentford and Chiswick Lt. Col. Grant Morden (1880–1932). He added refinements such as a ballroom, a Victorian-style Turkish bath, and an indoor squash court. Due to its seclusion, it was used as a discreet meeting place for high-ranking politicians and diplomats: the agreement to create the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed there.
In 1934, building tycoon Charles Boot (1874–1945) bought the land and turned it into a country club. The ballroom was converted into a restaurant and many of the bedrooms became furnished suites.
1930s
In 1935, millionaire flour magnate J. Arthur Rank (1888–1972) went into partnership with Boot and they transformed the estate into a film studio. Boot based designs for the studio complex on the latest ideas being employed by film studios in Hollywood, California. Boot named the new studio Pinewood because "of the number of trees which grow there and because it seemed to suggest something of the American film centre in its second syllable". Construction began in December of that year, with a new stage completed every three weeks. The studios were finished nine months later, having cost £1 million (approx. £61.1 million at 2024 prices). Five stages were initially completed and there was provision for an enclosed water tank capable of holding 65,000 imperial gallons (300,000 L), which is still in use. In the years that followed, he also undertook further work on both the Pinewood Film Studios and the Denham Film Studios, both of which had by then become a part of the newly-formed Rank Organisation.
On 30 September 1936, the studio complex was officially opened by Dr Leslie Burgin, Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. The first film director to use the facilities was Herbert Wilcox, completing London Melody (1937) featuring Anna Neagle (his wife), portions of which had already been filmed at British and Dominions Imperial Studios in Elstree, before a fire there halted production. The first film to be made entirely at Pinewood was Talk of the Devil (1936), directed by Carol Reed.
There followed a prolific period of Pinewood and British film history, with Pinewood following the studios adopting the "unit system", an American industry practice. That enabled several pictures to be filmed simultaneously and, ultimately, Pinewood achieved the highest output of any studio in the world.
1940s
During the Second World War, Pinewood was requisitioned, and the Crown Film Unit, No. 5 Army Film and Photographic Unit, Royal Air Force Film Production Unit, and Polish Air Force Film Unit were based there. The Crown Film Unit completed many classic wartime documentaries, and Roy Boulting's Desert Victory, Humphrey Jennings' Fires Were Started, Coastal Command and Pat Jackson's Western Approaches (all 1943) were filmed there during that period. As well as its use by the armed forces, the Royal Mint and Lloyd's of London were installed on sound stages at Pinewood, and were open for business for the duration of the war.
The Company of Youth, the Rank Organisation acting school, which launched several film careers, was founded in 1945. The next year, Pinewood re-opened for (non-war-related) business.
Two significant films produced at Pinewood were released within two months of each other in 1948: Oliver Twist, directed by David Lean, and Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes. Due to a shortfall in funds, brought about by financial overspends the previous year, Rank did not have enough money to market The Red Shoes sufficiently at first in the US, but it became Rank's biggest earner up to that point, grossing over £1 million by 1951 (the equivalent of £35.9 million in 2024 terms).
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In the same year, John Davis was appointed managing director. By the following year, Rank had run up an overdraft of £16 million (the equivalent of £635 million in 2024), and announced a loss of £3.5 million, mainly due to big budget flops. One of the largest of these had been Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), which was originally budgeted at £250,000, but which eventually cost £1,278,000 (the equivalent of £61.8 million in 2024).
1950s
The Doctor film series, produced by Betty Box and directed by Ralph Thomas, began with Doctor in the House (1954), the most successful film at the box-office of its year in Great Britain. All of the Doctor films, running until 1970, were shot at Pinewood. The Carry On franchise began in 1958, produced on behalf of Rank by Peter Rogers (who was married to Box), and directed by Gerald Thomas (brother of Ralph). The Norman Wisdom comedies, the last of which was released in 1966, were also filmed at the facility.
1960s
During the 1960s, Pinewood was no longer solely dependent on the Rank Organisation to fill its stages. "Renters" (producers hiring the sound stages for a film-by-film agreement) were using half of the stages as Pinewood turned into a four walls facility. The James Bond franchise began at Pinewood with Terence Young directing Dr. No (1962), and has continued to be based at the studios since then.
J. Arthur Rank (by then Lord Rank) retired as chairman in 1962 and was succeeded by John Davis, who had begun to move the Rank Organisation away from mass film production and towards more profitable and less risky businesses such as bingo and holidays.
1970s
During the 1970s, Pinewood studios were being used more for television programmes, including ITC Entertainment's UFO (1970), The Persuaders! (1971), starring Tony Curtis and Roger Moore, and Space: 1999 (1975–1977). Major films shot at Pinewood included Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Sleuth (1972), The Day of the Jackal (1973), Superman (1978) and Superman II (1980), Alien (1979) and Bugsy Malone (1976), and the James Bond films Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Live and Let Die (1973), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), and The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
1980s
Four James Bond movies, For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983), A View to a Kill (1985), and The Living Daylights (1987), among several other large productions, such as Pink Floyd – The Wall (1982), Superman III (1983), Krull (1983), Legend (1985), Aliens (1986), Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987), Santa Claus: The Movie (1985) and Tim Burton's Batman (1989), were all produced at Pinewood.
1990s
The 1990s saw large-scale productions, such as Alien 3 (1992), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), and The World Is Not Enough (1999) produced at the studios which kept Pinewood operating.
2000s
The Rank Group owned the studio until 2001, when it sold Pinewood for £62 million to a group led by Michael Grade and Ivan Dunleavy and financed by private equity group 3i, who held an 80% stake. The purchase of Shepperton Studios from a consortium headed by Ridley and Tony Scott, gave rise to the Pinewood Group, eventually comprising Pinewood Studios, Shepperton Studios, Teddington Studios, Pinewood Toronto Studios, Pinewood Indomina Studios, Pinewood Studio Berlin, Pinewood Iskandar Malaysia Studios, and a joint venture in the US with Pinewood Atlanta Studios.
In 2009, Pinewood and Shepperton received a BAFTA Award for their Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema.
2010s
The Pinewood Studios Group was subject to a hostile takeover approach in 2011. Manchester-based The Peel Group acquired a 73% stake, but Warren James Jewellers retained a 27% stake, so preventing a full takeover. In 2012 Financial Services Authority considered cancelling the stock market listing because nearly all the shares are held by two groups. In June 2016, five new stages and 10 new workshops were opened at Pinewood.
In 2019, the Walt Disney Studios announced a 10-year lease of most of the Pinewood Studios in September 2019, to start in 2020.
2020s
In 2025, Marvel Studios moved their main production servers and offices to Pinewood Studios, starting predominantly with the productions of Phase Six films The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, co-produced with Sony, and Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, as well as the show VisionQuest.
From Wikipedia’s article on Pinewood Studios, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3