Gross Behaviour - by Leonard Klady

Alien: The Unkindest Cuts

Last week the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences began its arduous annual process of screening submissions for the foreign-language category. Remember, it's the process and not necessarily the film that are arduous. This year a record 56 nations had films accepted and between now and the end of the year, selections will unspool twice weekly. However, come January the frequency will ramp up to daily double bills for two consecutive weeks.

This week the AFI Fest 2003 will raise the curtain Thursday and its schedule has a significant representation of films spoken in a language other than English. What took me slightly aback was the number of films that had already secured distribution in the United States. It's not much of a surprise that France's Oscar submission Bon Voyage will go out via Sony Classics or that festival favorites Osama from Afghanistan and the Chinese Blind Shaft have domestic releases. Still, there are quite a number of less obvious movies that have caught the interest of companies that retain an interest in the unusual. Denmark's dark comic The Green Butchers has been carved up by Newmarket; Kitano's highly stylized Dolls will be dressed by Palm Pictures and IDP hits the street with Germany's Rosenstrasse.

There's a common misconception among movie lovers that foreign films have largely been shut out of North American theaters. It would be more accurate to say that non-English language movies have a very difficult time getting the sort of visibility that translates into drawing a significant audience. If you asked most people, even the knowledgeable folk who write about movies, how many films produced outside the U.S. play in this country and Canada, you'd likely be told somewhere between 30 and 50.

In 2002, close to 200 foreign-language films opened in North American theaters. Even if you discount the movies that play only in Hindi-language theaters or never get exposure outside the province of Quebec, the number is still greater than a hundred. Last year's biggest grossing foreign tongued movie was Amelie with a 2002 box office of close to $18 million. It ranked 121st on the grosses chart. Three other films - Monsoon Wedding, Y Tu Mama Tambien and Brotherhood of the Wolf - had a box office in excess of $10 million but most of the pictures from abroad are lucky to get close to $1 million.

Even without the presence of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Life is Beautiful, the cinematic Tower of Babble amounted to more than $130 million for a market share of 1.4%. More typical is 2003's present 1% market share and the absence of a single film with a gross greater than $8 million. The irony is that despite the tiny sliver these films represent, America remains most often the single biggest (think money) revenue generator for films outside their country of origin. There are obvious exceptions, but even a film like Amelie with an international box office of $123 million ($45 million in France) had few comparably grossing territories to the U.S.

Last year's Oscar winner, Germany's Nowhere in Africa, had a $10 million run in its native land and grossed close to $7 million in North America. Outside those two countries, it added another $7 million in theatrical sales. Now that film was blessed with a golden statuette; securing distribution and box office that otherwise was unlikely to occur. However, despite an Oscar snub, Brazil's City of God still generated $4.6 million domestically and $18 million in the rest of the world.

While the sort of money we're dealing with seems pale in comparison to opening weekend figures of popular movies, it's rare that any of these films have production costs greater than $5 million. It should also be noted that a great deal of world cinema receives government subsidy because it's felt that Swedes ought to be able to see Swedish films, the Siamese would embrace Thai pictures and Argentines could tango to local product. And as indigenous films are generally disadvantaged even on home turf by the big American movie machine, they could well use a bit of moral and financial assistance.

According to Motion Picture Association of America statistics, U.S. movies commanded between 52% (France) and 88% (Canada) of the theatrical picture in the top 10 film markets during 2002. In the current year, non-American productions (a sometime difficult to define matter) constitute approximately 4.5% of domestic market ticket sales with culturally (though not necessarily financially) British pictures accounting for approximately 43% of that 4.5%.

French productions - and that includes such English-language films as The Pianist and Swimming Pool - have a 20% slice of the sliver with just 24% of those films in French. The percentages rapidly decline to Canada and Australia/New Zealand each with 8%, Hong Kong with 7% and Spain and South America accounting for 4.5%. By comparison, American movies have market shares of 74%, 66% and 80% respectively in the U.K., Spain and Mexico.

Now, this is a pretty broad statement, but in general the best and most universal films from outside the United States tend to reach these shores. In the best possible scenario Miramax, Sony Classics or Focus Features acquires them. As noted last week, the major studio distribution arms have virtually abandoned buying completed films and acquisitions by their specialty divisions have dwindled, particularly for non English-language films. But having one of these divisions behind a foreign film is a real asset for several obvious reasons. For one thing they tend to have a regular flow of product and that trumps the smaller companies that may have five or six month hiatuses in their release schedule.

While it's strictly not kosher to tell an exhibitor he can have a certain title as long as he plays a less desirous picture, I have heard it mentioned that the practice of strong-arming persists. Finally, one of the nice aspects of having deeper pockets is that you can advertise a movie, perhaps even take out TV spots on Bravo. Thus far in 2003, nine films - all in English - produced outside America have had domestic grosses of more than $10 million. All but one, the Kiwi family drama Whale Rider handled by Newmarket, was handled by a studio affiliate.

What's rather disturbing is that less than a handful of these overseas productions distributed by true indies have grossed in excess of $1 million. The Quebec hits are distributed by Alliance, a Canadian major that also happens to rep Miramax and New Line. But the smaller companies simply can't afford to get involved in a bidding war or respond to a case of buyer's remorse by quietly burying a movie and rushing it to DVD.

Zeitgeist, the distributor of Nowhere in Africa, was lucky that other acquisitors failed to see the commercial appeal of the movie. It was a total fluke and while the company ably capitalized on that good fortune, its owners are savvy enough to realize it cannot operate on the basis of other people's oversight. The same would apply to such companies as Strand, Wellspring and Palm.

The story goes that Harvey Weinstein, still smarting from missing out on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, was quick on the draw when the opportunity arose to invest in Zhang Yimou's Hero - another period adventure with sword play and wire work stunts. The film opened late last year in China and several Asian countries and set box office records. It was submitted by China in last year's foreign-language race and made the ballot. Now here's the disconnect. Why didn't Miramax open the film at a time when Oscar attention would have been beneficial? A year later, Hero has grossed more than $100 million internationally including a record $32 million in Japan for a non-local Asian film. There is still no official U.S. opening date though rumors of an April 2004 release have circulated recently.

Hero, comparatively speaking, was a high ticket item. A smaller company, ironically, would have rolled the dice and committed to opening the picture at Oscar time whether or not it was a nominee. Miramax simply waited and allowed the heat to cool on its undeveloped reel estate. If and when it decides to commercially release the film, that heat will have to be recreated and that's a costly proposition. It's the sort of option only someone with rich parents can afford and, rather than promoting creative thinking and taking chances, historically specialized divisions have leaned toward acquiring the conventional and targeting an extremely small sections of the movie going public.

Several years back I wrote a piece about the history of film dubbing in the United States. Dubbing, as opposed to sub-titling, is a culturally imbedded thing. In Italy and Germany it's rare to find a film that isn't dubbed and, apart from Paris, that's also true in France. However, in most of Asia, films are sub-titled, often in several languages.

The North American attitude as professed by the key people who acquire and distribute non-English movies in America might be summarized as: only a philistine would prefer to see a dubbed movie. One of my personal favorite factoids is the percentage of Americans that carry passports. Like the number of annual imports, the figure is a bit of a shocker - 7%.

It doesn't follow that American movie goers are largely barbarians or that people drawn to see other cultures, other sensibilities will only accept them with a ticker tape of English running underneath the dialogue. The research provided by MarketCast, a leader in motion picture tracking and analysis, revealed that a significant majority of Americans would favor dubbing over sub-titling. The percentage in favor of dubbing was even higher among younger viewers, ethnics and people fluent in a second language. What it suggests, minimally, is that there's a huge untapped audience for international movies that has yet to be exploited and in the present environment, the people capable of taking a bold step in that direction are the most timid and inflexible in attitude. It's the stories that are universal and with rare exception they are being restricted to a high class ghetto that's shrinking not expanding.