I was watching an episode of Coupling on BBC America the other day, and there was a scene that took place inside a video store. As the characters walked down an aisle, I was reading movie titles on the shelves and noticed that most of them appeared to be American films.
Just how prevalent are American films in the UK? For that matter, how big is the UK film industry?
–Patch
O.K., I just got back from a two-and-a-half-week vacation in the U.K. (and, in any case, I lived in the U.K. from 1987 to 1990), so I can answer this question. The majority of the films shown in British movie theaters are American, as are the majority of the videos available for sale or rental. I don’t know the exact figures, but I’d guess that about 60% of the films shown in the U.K. are American.
There’s a modest U.K. film industry. A fifth of the size of the American film industry, perhaps? Or maybe only about a tenth of the size? Not that the size of the industry tells you how often those films are shown outside the country, you understand. The film industry in India is about two or three times the size of the American film industry, but I suspect you haven’t seen any Indian films lately.
Most films in cinemas or video stores are American, the UK film industry simply isn’t very big. What UK films that do get made are also not generally the ‘bubblegum’ movies you see in video stores; with the exception of Bond, I don’t think any large action films have been made here.
I’d say it’s more like 90% Wendell Wagner or more even.
Any britflick good enough to get shown here is usually good enough to get shown in America too (although it won’t do as well there) In other words there are very very few britflicks by comparrison.
Things like James Bond and Harry Potter do not count as brit-flicks as too much of their production is American.
How you define a Britflick? A question that’s constantly debated by academia. Or at least, by first year film students.
Some do consider Harry Potter to be A british film, because the cast is british and it was filmed over here, and based on a British novel. And yet all of the $$$ were well $$$ and not £££.
It is difficult to find a truly British picture, you’d mainly be looking at independent stuff. There have been some British flicks which made it big both sides of the atlantic, pictures like Lock Stock, and snatch, and more recently Anti and me, and Bend it like Beckham.
With the demise of the Film Four production company (last year?) things started to look even worse.
On the other hand with the advent of digital film making, it costs much, much less to finance a production.
Another question that occurs to is me this, is there an artistic point to a National Cinema, if we’re only going to be producing Hollywood clones? (I’m not saying this is exclusively the case.) The new wave films of the 50’s and 60’s (Arguably the last time British National Cinema had a specific identity) were produced in direct opposition to Hollywood flicks. Although of course their financing was ultimately driven by ticket sales, going against their own anti-commercial ethos.
I’ll stop now, I could write more, but I’d have to start opening books to check figure, and I’m just on my way out.
Any video store in the world would have mostly American movies (unless, of course, they make it a point not to). How long have you been on Mars to not realize that Hollywood runs the world (and even still, I wouldn’t be suprised if they did try a run of Spiderman up there)?
Well, it’s perfectly natural. We speak the same language, so can watch each other’s films about as easily as our own. Suppose there are 9 times as many American films as British films. A store pulling the best English language films will get about 1 in 10 being British.
Obviously everyone likes local films so it’s skewed toward the host country.
Does anyone know how it works in Australia (or Canada)?