Cinema of the United Kingdom as Goldcrest, HandMade Films and Merchant Ivory Productions. Handmade Films, which was partly owned by George Harrison, was originally formed to take over the production of "Monty Python's Life of Brian", after EMI's Bernard Delfont (Lew Grade's brother) had pulled out. Handmade also bought and released the gangster drama "The Long Good Friday" (1980), produced by a Lew Grade subsidiary, after its original backers became cautious. Members of the Python team were involved in other comedies during the decade, including Terry Gilliam's fantasy films "Time Bandits" (1981) and "Brazil" (1985), and John Cleese's hit "A Fish Called Wanda" (1988), while
Monty Python reveals that a series of disputes in 1998, over a possible sequel to "Holy Grail" that had been conceived by Idle, may have resulted in the group's permanent split. Cleese's feeling was that "The Meaning of Life" had been personally difficult and ultimately mediocre, and did not wish to be involved in another Python project for a variety of reasons (not least amongst them was the absence of Chapman, whose straight man-like central roles in the "Grail" and "Brian" films had been considered to be an essential anchoring performance). Apparently, Idle was angry with Cleese for refusing to do the