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's Life of Brian grossing British film in North America that year. Released on 8 November 1979 in the UK, the film was the fourth highest-grossing film in Britain in 1979. On 30 April 2004, "Life of Brian" was re-released on five North American screens to "cash in" (as Terry Jones put it) on the box office success of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ". It grossed $26,376 ($5,275 per screen) in its opening weekend. It ran until October 2004, playing at 28 screens at its widest point, eventually grossing $646,124 during its re-release. By comparison, a re-release of "Monty Python and the