The World Wide Cinema

Hollywood's Stake In It

Here's The Economists' take on the globalisation of distribution as seen from a Hollywood perspective.

The success of a film outside America is not purely a marketing matter. As foreign box-office sales have become more important, the people who manage international distribution have become more influential, weighing in on “green-light” decisions about which films are made. The studios are careful to seed films with actors, locations and, occasionally, languages that are well-known in target countries. Sony cites the foreign success of “The Green Hornet” (Taiwanese hero, Austrian-German villain) and “Resident Evil: Afterlife” (Japanese location) as evidence of that strategy.

Big noisy spectacle travels best. Jason Statham, the close-cropped star of many a mindlessly violent film, is a particular Russian favourite. Films based on well-known literature (including cartoon books) and myths may also fare well. Films that trade on contemporary American cultural references are about as popular abroad as an oil slick on a NASCAR track. (Note to our non-American readers: NASCAR is an American sport involving fast cars.) Comedy travels badly, too: Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler provoke guffaws at home but incomprehension abroad. As the market swings away from America, funny films are less likely to find financing or broad distribution anywhere. “You won’t see us doing a lot of comedies,” says Brad Grey, head of Paramount Pictures.

The growing internationalisation of the film business suits the biggest outfits, and not just because they can afford explosions. The major studios’ power lies not so much in their ability to make good films—plenty of smaller operations can do that—but in their ability to wring every possible drop of revenue from a film. With their superior global marketing machines and their ability to anticipate foreign tastes, they are increasingly dominating the market. For everyone else, there is a chance to win a gold statue.

World cinema is the catchphrase for films not dominated by Hollywood structure, or made outside of Hollywood structures, but that may well change as Hollywood's reach goes even more global. If they start buying up distribution channels in non-English speaking countries, it's going to impact on those local cinemas much more than in the past. After all, they're competing for every disposable dollar going towards the screen, around the world.