Wonder Woman's Latest Mission: Saving the UK's Economy?

Lianne Hikind | July 26, 2017
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As if we needed another reason to love Wonder Woman, apparently the film is driving economic growth in the United Kingdom.

According to Yahoo! Finance, Wonder Woman, along with a few other films, have contributed to an increased growth rate in the U.K.'s services sector. Yahoo! Finance spokesperson Fergal O'Brien explained:

"U.K. box-office receipts for the Warner Bros. film, and others such as “Pirates of the Caribbean,” helped drive growth in services in the second quarter of the year. Including film production, the sector grew 8.2 percent and added 0.07 percentage point to gross domestic product over the three months. That’s almost one-third of the 0.3 percent growth recorded in the period."

"Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that growth in U.K. motion picture activities has “significantly outpaced” that in European Union countries since early 2014."

One of the primary reasons behind this growth is that filmmakers are increasingly using places in the U.K. to film, largely thanks to the tax incentives the U.K. offers in order to compete with other, cheaper shooting locations in Europe. 

Aside from Wonder Woman, 175 films took advantage of the U.K.'s Film Tax Relief in the last year, according to Yahoo! Finance.

There were 175 films completed in the U.K. in 2016-17 which claimed Film Tax Relief, with the Treasury paying out 415 million pounds. That’s up from 339 million pounds the previous year and is four times higher than a decade earlier. Big-budget television shows – which include the Netflix series “The Crown” – received 163 million pounds.

Thanks to Wonder Woman's smashing box office success, the movie is being hailed as a prime example of the U.K.'s success in wooing films as a way to boost their local economy. The film is set to top $800 million, according to Forbes.

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