Billy Elliot is a 2000 British dance drama film produced by Greg Brenman and Jon Finn, written by Lee Hall and directed by Stephen Daldry.The film is set in north-eastern England during the 1984-85 coal miners’ strike, it stars Jamie Bell as 11-year-old Billy, an aspiring dancer dealing with the negative stereotype of the male ballet dancer, Gary Lewis as his coal miner father, Jamie Draven as Billy’s older brother, and Julie Walters as his ballet teacher. In 2001, author Melvin Burgess was commissioned to write the novelisation of the film based on Lee Hall’s screenplay. The story was adapted for the West End stage as Billy Elliot the Musical in 2005; it opened in Australia in 2007 and on Broadway in 2008. The film was theatrically released on 29 September 2000 by Universal Pictures and Focus Features. The film received positive reviews from critics and it earned £72,853,509 on a £3 million budget.
