Recent studies (some of which can be read by clicking on the links below) have suggested that international box-office revenues (that is, money taken outside of the US market) have grown from roughly equal to domestic revenue in 2000 (that is, money taken at the box-office in the US) to double the level of domestic revenue in 2009.
You should be able to argue that from as far back as the 1930s and the Studio Era, that Hollywood realised that the key to success was making films that appealed to a global audience and not just viewers within America. Related to issues regarding Hollywood's global success are discussions regarding the current organisational structure of Hollywood (in terms of multimedia conglomerates), the focus on making movies based on internationally recognisable source material such as worldwide best-selling novels and universally popular comic-book characters, producing films with relatively simple, formulaic, recognisable narratives that translate easily into any language because they cover universal themes, and the use inclusion of globally-recognisable stars, who will be used extensively in the marketing of the films.
It is worth looking at the box-office figures on the links below (taken from the very useful website www.the-numbers.com) related to the top-grossing films of all time.
Not only will you find that many of these movies are based on existing source material with a huge fan-base (something that is key to the continued dominance and success of Hollywood) or that they are sequels/part of a franchise BUT, you should also notice that the majority of the films towards the top of the list (particularly those that have taken over $1 billion worldwide) have taken double the amount of money internationally (outside of the US market) than they have within the US domestic market.
This suggests that many of these Hollywood movies would have struggled to have broken even (in terms of the combined production and marketing budgets) with domestic box-office takings alone.
The reality for other national cinemas, including the UK Film Industry, is that they simply cannot compete with Hollywood in terms of the international reach of its films.
Acclaimed UK films, such as Dead Man's Shoes, This is England, The Selfish Giant and Sightseers, perform badly in the UK (certainly compared to Hollywood movies) BUT, the reality is that they perform even more poorly in the international market, particularly in the US:
- Dead Man's Shoes, for example, opened on only 1 screen in the USA, rising to 2 screens the following week before disappearing altogether - taking a total of $6,013 in the US
- The Selfish Giant opened on 3 screens, rising to 4 and then 6 in the next two weeks, before its run ended - the film took a total of $12,189 in the US
- Even the relatively successful This is England only opened on 1 screen in the US, before rising to a maximum of 14 screens halfway through its run. While the film took $327,919 during its US run, this is actually less than a fifth of its original production budget and therefore does not represent a particularly profitable return
- Sightseers opened on 2 screens in the US before rising to 10 screens by the end of its run four weeks later. The film's total takings at the US box-office of $35,722 comes nowhere near recouping the film's production budget of £1.2 million
If you find yourself discussing the reasons why Hollywood dominates and, in particular, the reasons why UK films generally perform so poorly, you really need to consider what needs to be done to rectify this situation and make UK films more globally appealing.
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