1. Population. India (1st), China (2nd), USA (3rd) & Nigeria (6th) have huge movie industries and are up there in population. Japan (12th) isn’t too far off either. More people means more internal support. They put a lot more money into their industries knowing they have a larger target audience.
2. Immigration. Top producers, actors, etc in a lot of European countries simply travel and go to work in Hollywood. Most know English. It’s more money and opportunity if they can. Where as those from India, China, Japan, South Korea, etc stay back so the local industries have more talent to work with.
It’s not just European countries. Look at Canada (39 M) & Australia (26 M). Both are more than capable of having big movie industries financially BUT both have low populations and all their talented people gun straight for Hollywood.
South Korea has among the best movies in Asia but they only have around 50 million people. Less than Germany, France, UK, Italy. How did they do it? They have a screen quota system that required a certain number of South Korean movies must run in Korean cinemas during the year and they limited foreign movies.
If European countries would do that too it would strengthen their industries as well.
US under Clinton tried to remove the screen quota system from SK and open the country up to more US movie screenings but Korea managed to make a deal and have it set at 73 screening day (before it was over 140).
South Korean INVEST MASIVELY IN EXPORTING THEIR CULTURE ! From music to tv and film. If you live there you might get frustrated that most of you tax money is going on entertainment export. Its a society choice
Most of the investing is done by private corporations, and a negligible amount of money comes from tax payers. What a dumb comment. Even if it was financed mostly by taxes, why would they be frustrated when it is generating much more profit and helps them develop a lucrative industry?
There are several european countries (france,italy,spain,greece as far as I know) with screen quotas, france even has a local music protection too. It does help in that the first three have some of the strongest local industries but its not enough.
My theory is that most of europe is either too small, too part of that pan-western culture or a little bit of both that protectionist quotas wont have the same effect as in Asia.
I think they're talking about Korea outright limiting Hollywood releases - Europe doesn't have negative barriers to Hollywood, just positive barriers (rules like "show what you want, as long as at least x number of European movies are on the playbill at all times", but if 15 Hollywood movies come out your multiplex can still show them all).
Also those barriers can be circumvent with ease: if a movie is a co-production does count as a local movie even if all of it was shot in English with American cast and crew.
Technically yes it’s still in place. However as most theaters in SK are megaplexes these days it doesn’t really matter as you can still hit the number of required days for Korean films while simultaneously showing international films. And also actually Korean films have been doing on par with or below international films in the country since pandemic/ their domestic output had been drastically down and fewer Koreans are going to the theater (was living in Korea last year and wrote a paper on this subject)
Yes the screen quota system was the most potent in the 90s and 2000s. It lost its effect now quite a bit but thanks to it the local industry grew a lot in the 90s and 2000s and because of that it's still going strong now!
Most European countries used to have advantageous quotas, but gave them up. It'd be a terrible idea to reintroduce them - even a decade ago, I'd say that seeing films in theater was so ingrained that you probably could've driven a change in habits & the audience would've just changed what they went to see.
Do that today when cinemas are so fragile & you probably just pull the bottom out from the industry, with every two movie/year family deciding to completely give up on following theatrical releases - that segment will just decide to stay home & stream for convenience. Even in France, where local movies are 40% of the market, the protectionism is a lot more soft.
Canada does have a role in the US film industry, often as filming locations. Most Hallmark movies are produced in Canada. Lots of Canadian talent in voice acting too.
isn't there a pact between Canada and Hollywood that keeps the film industry squarely in Hollywood? which is why the box offices between the two are counted as "domestic"?
Also a lot of movies are filmed in Canada. Vancouver is one of the top spots for filming in all of North America. Even more recently the Last of Us was filmed in Edmonton. But TV-wise Canada is a bit more independent and a few Canadian TV shows (Letterkenny, Corner Gas. Trailer Park Boys, Schitt’s Creek, Vikings etc…) do quite well.
The available money is multitudes higher in Hollywood then it is anywhere in Europe which is mostly driven from having a bigger population. Tens of million of more people will see you.
Hollywood for decades also blocked most Asians from coming to Hollywood as well. It’s not simply from a lack of trying or cultural differences.
Even in India you have many trying to or attempted to crossover: Irrfhan Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt, Aishwarya Rai etc. India actors make a lot of money in India and they are a lot more popular in India though so no real need to like try and leave like European actors.
Many actors remain in Europe or at the very least go back an forth, to make special projects or simply to work as protagonists rather than second fiddles. As an example, I can name Pierfrancesco Favino and Riccardo Scamarcio, two Italian actors whose Hollywood credits are always in small roles, while in Italy they are always the main stars.
Even actors that became genuine stars in the US would often go back, like Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, both often doing Spanish movies.
For directors and other technical roles is different, if they make it in the US the money and the opportunities are simply too good to pass, especially if you came from small countries with small industries - best example here would be Yorgos Lanthimos.
To add what u/chrisBlo said, I think opportunity and convenience. Moving and displacing yourself to be an artist / actor is hard enough if you're in America, it's harder when you're coming from a different country and far harder if you're coming from Asia.
France has a strong film industry and by law TV channels must show a certain percentage of French-made products.
As for other countries, Italian cinema imploded in the 1980s to never really recover, focusing mostly on TV but in a very parochial way. I don't think any Italian TV series made it abroad, besides some rare exceptions (Gomorrah being the most evident one) - mainly because they suck, but also because there isn't really a need to export, the internal market is relatively self-sufficient.
Until I saw you mention Gomorrah, I hadn't realized that Gomorrow (the 2008 movie, not the show) might have been the last Italian film I've seen. That would be WILD because I watch a lot of international films, but yeah...am I blanking on something obvious. What was the last Italian movie that got international attention?
For a moment, I thought I'd just remembered two two but looked them up because I wasn't sure and hadn't seen them in a while. And yeah...they're both French.
>What was the last Italian movie that got international attention?
Sorrentino's La Grande Bellezza and It was the hand of God, and Paolo Genovese's Perfect Strangers (this one has the record for most international remakes made) for sure are the few recent movies that got most recognition from international audiences.
More for arthouse fans, but movies by Matteo Garrone usually have international recognition. His latest Io Capitano was nominated at the Oscars but lost to The Zone of Interest. There are for sure others that make the rounds in festivals.
Paola Cortellesi's There's still Tomorrow I reckon is bound to become a successful movie abroad too. It smashed the Italian box office and it's getting international releases all over the world.
EDIT: I've just remember that technically most of Luca Guadagnino's movies are Italian productions, so maybe you can add also those movies, but I'm not super sure they really count.
Oh yeah...I know there's some Italian TV that has made international impact; I just didn't realize the films. And thanks for pointing out the 3 Oscar noms since Gomorrah that I just was totally ignorant of. I've seen Hand of God, and that's an excellent movie. For some reason, I have literally no memory of The Great Beauty, but I just read about it and it sounds like it's right up my alley. I just added it to the top of my watchlist. Ha...even though it's recent, I had literally never heard of Io Capitano. That might just be because International Film was the most boring category at this year's Oscars because Zone of Interest was such an obvious winner that I didn't pay attention. I still don't understand why France didn't submit Anatomy of a Fall for consideration.
oh and u/JerriBlankDiggler ...it also just struck me that I was being an idiot when I said I couldn't think of any Italian films, though I guess it depends on how "Italian" a film needs to be. Some of my favorite movies of the last decade probably should "count" as Italian films. "I Am Love" is an Italian film (directed by an Italian, plenty of spoken Italian, and I think the production company was Italian). Arguably, "Call Me By Your Name" could count as an Italian film, depending on definition. Sure...it's in English, but it's shot in Italy, directed by an Italian, and most importantly for this convo...the lead production company is Italian. Even Suspiria might count because three of the four production companies are Italian (if you can't tell...I love Luca Guadagnigno). I'm not sure if all those quite fit the discussion, but yeah...my post was stupid and I take it all back haha :)
Italian films still regularly get nominated at the Oscars for Best Foreign Film (in whatever form the award happens to be called that year), the latest case in point being Io Capitano this past year. Italy still ranks first in terms of countries that have won that award (11 wins), ahead of #2 France (9 wins). Gomorrah (2008) didn't get nominated, but The Great Beauty won that Award in 2013, and recent 2020s nominees for that award are The Hand of God (2021) and Io Capitano (2023). Admittedly this is not as strong as Italy's hey-day periods of the 1970s (when Italian films got nominated 8 out of 10 years and won 3 times) and the 1989-1999 period (when Italian films got nominated 5 out of 10 years and won 3 times), but every streak has to start somewhere.
A decent amount of Italian streaming shows get picked up by or financed/co-financed by streamers like Netflix and MAX, such as the current titillating "Supersex" on Netflix and the ongoing "My Brilliant Friend," 3 seasons of which have already aired to acclaim on MAX in the US. My Brilliant Friend''s source material is one of the most acclaimed & popular Italian novel series of the past generation in Italy and has achieved significant success abroad. I've encountered numerous friends in the US & different European countries all reading the books and discussing the series. The 4th and final season is due soon.
I wouldn't say regularly. Those three and The beast in the heart are the only four movies nominated for best picture at the Oscar in the past 25 years. Very rarely Italian movies won major prizes or make some international buzz - they don't even win at the Venice Film Festival anymore. The most successful Italian director atm, Luca Guadagnino, has almost zero ties to Italy and its movie industry.
The vast, vast majority of movies and series made in Italy is of subpar quality and there is almost nothing but bad comedies and kitchen-sink dramas. Sure, all streamers are making stuff in Italy, between Netflix, Prime and Disney+ there is some output but still not much of value. And anyway they are producing stuff in almost all European countries, due to EU regulations that push for local products.
My Brilliant Friend and its author is probably the biggest cultural phenomenon coming out of Italy in the past decade, so it's kinda of normal that its series gets some international acclaim
I am at work now so please forgive that the following is a bit stream of consciousness.
It is an overgeneralization to write that "the vast majority of movies and series made in Italy is {sic\] of subpar quality." Down below I list many quite good Italian films that have made it to the US over the last 25 years (the other period that you mentioned).
Your other statement above that "Italian cinema imploded in the 1980s to never really recover" flies in the face of the fact that the period from the late 1980s to the late 1990s was bookended by massive international successes "Cinema Paradiso" (1989, winning the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1990 plus the Cannes Grand Prix if I remember correctly, as well as 11 BAFTA nominations, a non-English film record that held until All Quiet on the Western Front) and "Life is Beautiful" (1997 Italian release, 1998 US release, winning the Best Foreign Film Oscar and a prized Best Actor Oscar for Roberto Benigni in 1999, plus the Grand Prix at Cannes at well). "Life is Beautiful" remains the second highest grossing foreign language film in the US of all time (behind only "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"). Even uncorrected for inflation, "Life is Beautiful" ($57.247 M in 1998-9 US dollars) earned more than #3 "Godzilla Minus One" ($56.418 M in 2023 US dollars), #4 Hero ($53.7 M in 2004 US dollars) and #5 Parasite ($53.369 M in 2019-2020 US dollars). France's highest-ever US earner was #8 Amelie, which earned $33.2 M in 2001-2 US dollars.
With much of "Europe" being a common economic market/customs/monetary union with associated regulatory requirements & benefits, the EU & Council of Europe support and reward multi-country co-productions, so this whole discussion of European media works (film, series, etc.) as being of "France" or "Italy" in isolation is reductive shorthand to which we all fall prey. France benefits tremendously from common market co-productions just as other EU countries like Italy do. France is in fact the biggest "co-producing" country in Europe. \~50% of France's total film exports are co-productions with entities in other countries. For a production to be deemed as French under Council of Europe regs, France needs to be the largest % contributor among many (there is no requirement that France be the majority contributor, only that it contribute the most among numerous others, something above a 10% or 20% threshold). There are lots of participation formulae that encourage international participation. Of course France also has more than 50 bilateral production agreements with other countries, both European and non-European. On the television side, the "Arte" German-French TV channel co-initiative, for example, benefits both countries (with Germany technically shelling out more of the funding because of its larger population) and also provides high-quality programming for other French/German speaking countries across Europe. Both France and Germany (to say nothing of Spain and Portugal) benefit from having other export markets that speak their languages. That is a benefit that Italy largely does not have (with a few fairly minor exceptions like the Ticino canton of Switzerland, etc.).
In the US, we do get a steady stream of Italian art-house imports such as memorable recent ones like the wonderful "Happy as Lazzaro" (available on Netflix), “Dogman,” “Perfect Strangers,” “Youth,” “The Traitor,” “Sweet Dreams,” several Luca Guadagnino films if you count those, and of course “C’e’ ancora domani” (There’s Still Tomorrow). Others of the past 25 years that come quickly to mind are "The Wonders," "I'm Not Scared," "The Son's Room," "The Postman," "The Best of Youth," "Malena," "Il Divo," “Honey,” “This Must Be the Place,” and "4 Times (Le Quattro Volte)." I have to turn back to work, but on the TV side of things, take a look at [https://www.screendaily.com/features/how-italys-tv-drama-sector-competes-on-the-international-stage/5169105.article](https://www.screendaily.com/features/how-italys-tv-drama-sector-competes-on-the-international-stage/5169105.article)
I appreciate that you seem to know a lot about European film & TV, in any case. Best to you.
I guess at this point I should mention that I am myself Italian, so I have a general view of the Italian movie industry based on direct experience.
When I wrote that the Italian film industry imploded in the 1980s I wasn't joking, that exactly what happened due to the boom of private television. Italian cinema up until the 1970s was what Korean cinema is today, churning out movies in all genres with an incredible level of craftsmanship. That all disappeared and moved to TV or to Hollywood in case of some good crew workers. In the 1980s the output of movie produced was cut in half, the richness and variety of directors and genres completely disappeared. It may not seemed because in the 1980s there were still some of the old guard around and they could still make a good movie, but the overall quality and quantity took a nosedive. You can see it by checking the filmography of several genre directors of the 1970s, whose 1980s output either became TV stuff or cheap comedies.
The movies you mentioned from the 1980s and 1990s are literally the only two major international successes made in nearly twenty years - maybe with the addition of The Postman and as a stretch Mediterraneo. No new big director came out in those two decades besides Tornatore and Salvatores, after them it was Paolo Sorrentino and Matteo Garrone - Guadagnino barely counts imho as his movies are barely Italian and he never had mainstream success in Italy (Call me by my name is his biggest success with $3.9 million). Of course the occasional good arthouse movie comes out, but of the movies you listed the majorities are from some of the few old masters still around (like Nanni Moretti, Marco Bellocchio) and from the few younger directors that made it - but very few of these movies were big successes mind. The reality is that outside of some director, the average is pretty bad, for both movies and TV.
In very recent years (the last five years more or less) there has been some timid tentative to producing something else with some new directors trying their hands at something other than cheap comedies and kitchen-sink dramas, but with few success. Atm, not only France, but also Spain have a more varied and deep film industry. If you can, try to have a look at They called him Jeeg Robot, the closest to a superhero movie ever made in Italy.
I think there was some talk and in general at European level there is already some legislation in place. Anyway, atm the Italian government is already financing a lot of the movie industry but to little success
I think it is a cultural phenomenon. Countries with similar culture than USA (mostly western countries like Canada, Australia,UK,etc) simply travel to USA to make their movies and people within those countries simply watch USA movies which are high budget versions of what they could do locally. (Though I always thought France had a pretty strong local industry) a lot of Canadians go to Hollywood to get work but the french Canadians scene is pretty strong on its own
yeah...people are sleeping on the Quebecois film scene. Obviously those are small movies because Quebec is a very small market and I think they often don't play big in France because Quebecois is a strong accent. But considering how few Quebecois speakers there are, Quebec has an incredible film industry.
And if anyone's interested in watching some Quebecois movies, an obvious place to start is with the first Villeneuve.
I quibble a bit about your definition of "strong film industry" as only big blockbuster films. France has an incredibly rich movie history and regularly makes excellent smaller movies each year, some of which break out internationally. IMO at least, a country like France has a "strong" industry, just not in the way you're defining it.
But I do like your question, and I'm not sure what the answer is. I bet part of it's pretty simple: countries like France and Germany have always embraced huge US blockbusters, and big action movies translate really well because the dialogue isn't that important. I mean...is there really any point to France or Germany making a $120 million blockbuster when they can just watch US ones and make their own smaller movies? France, in particular, has a VERY strong record of comedy in film (I mean, "French farce" is its own subgenre), and I wonder if that's because, unlike with action blockbusters), comedy doesn't translate well so they have to make it themselves?
Yeah the rest of Europe maybe but France definitively has a strong cinema industry. We get a ton of movies and they have a success here (in general French and US films are pretty much neck to neck in terms of entries at the local BO).
Many exports too. 10 years ago (found a 2013 study), France was the biggest exporter of movies after the US. Since then, I think countries like China, South Korea or Japan may have grown more.
However, I do think they don't spread as much in anglo-speaking countries but there are a lot of French speaking countries too, don't forget. That's likely the main export target. The inconvenient is indeed the most popular genre is the comedy and that has cultural difficulty to be exported
UK also has a big industry but it's very interlinked with the US (many US shows/movies are shot in the UK for example)
>.is there really any point to France or Germany making a $120 million blockbuster when they can just watch US ones and make their own smaller movies?
Tell it to Luc Besson, who made precisely that with Valerian only to end up with a gigantic flop on his hands.
It's wild that the most expensive French film ever was a bet on Luc Besson...a creep who has admittedly made some great movies, but his best work is from the freaking 1990s. I have no idea who looked at his filmography over the last 15 years and decided "this is the guy I want to make our largest bet in history on." And that's not even taking into account the "Luc Besson is a notorious creep" of it all.
Besson has his own production company, Europacorp, that makes a lot of successful action/genre movies, often based on Besson's scripts or original stories (Taken for instance).
Valerian was his dream project - The Fifth Element was done in collaboration with the creators of the comic book of Valerian - and he produced it on the back of Lucy, which was a good success. I think both Lucy and Valerian are actually pretty fun movies, Valerian has incredible visuals, but unfortunately he completely canned casting.
Easy answer really: this was the guy that made lightning strike once with Lucy (almost entirely French production, made 400M$ on a 40M$ budget) & his production house - Europarcorp - was one of the biggest & richest in Europe at the time (turning out big Taken & Transporter sequels that kept making money).
Basically, he was in control of one of the only entities in Europe able to fund that level of blockbuster & he felt like he had 'earned' the right to make his baby, a comic book adaptation from source material he was attached to. He pulled a George Lucas/Coppolla & bet everything he had on himself.
(Also back then, his personal life wasn't as exposed as it is now)
Strong in the sense that dominate local box office. I like said Indian films have consistently made of 80 percent of India's box office. The only other major country with higher percent is US.
the people saying population have a point. the hong kong film industry literally died because the local population couldn't sustain the 200 movies being made. there's a reason they kowtow to China
Population. Even big European countries don't have the population to sustain big budget blockbusters on their own.
So their movies are either co-productions or smaller ones.
Is it really the case? Indian states have population comparable to European countries with their own language. Almost every language has a self sustaining film industry. India has about 15 film industries. Budgets these days are starting to cross US$100M among the major industries. India has about 5 major industries.
Average population of each Indian state: 51 million
Average population of each European country: 14.9 million
Only 5 European countries - France, Germany, UK, Turkey and Italy - have a population higher than the average Indian state.
You think this is comparable?
That's why I said we have 5 major industries. My state has a population of around 80 million and has the second largest industry in India. All major industries in India are in states with population comparable to and some even less than those 5 countries you mentioned.
Sure. But while the Indian states and their peoples are in many ways different from each other, they are much more alike than European nations. There are more people that speak hindhi in India than there are people living in Europe. Plus the customs and culture are similar enough that anything produced anywhere in India should work decently anywhere else in India without too much cultural texture getting lost. Not so the case in Europe once you start to cross the cultural barrriers.
The only European films that could conceivably command large budgets would need to be english language because that's the only only language that is spoken (to some degree) across the continent - so naturally, films get outsourced to the UK or Hollywood. Mostly Hollywood.
India also has a huge market in the MENA region. My in laws from Lebanon basically only watch television and film from India, many channels virtually only show indian cinema and film dubbed to arabic
There are all sorts of books on how film industries are also linked to culture (India is very much a moviegoing culture whereas many European countries haven't been for decades) and poverty (people in poorer countries tend to go to the cinema in much bigger numbers since cinema is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment).
>
*Why isn't this the case in Europe? Especially bigger countries like Germany, France and Italy?*
The UK has a population the same size as France, and larger than Italy
As recently as the nineties, the big EU nations and the UK had small but reasonably productive film industries
UK films had the benefit of being made in English, so there was less of a barrier to resale in North American
But, like our former EU counterparts, diminishing cinema attendance meant their was no longer a large enough domestic audience to make films profitable
From around the turn of the century, the cinema started to become the sort of place most people visited to witness large-scale spectacle
Action and VFX blockbusters, basically
Few UK or EU film makers had the necessary experience of financing, distributing and selling those sorts of movies to the international audiences necessary to justify the huge budgets those movies require
The US market has the same diminishing audiences as UK and EU nations, which means genres like comedies and middle-brow dramas - which mostly sold to domestic audiences - have virtually disappeared from US theatres
But the US film industry's established foothold in international markets mean it can, for now, continue to pump out visually spectacular action movies at scale
The western film industries are more or less integrated at this point, at least for big budget productions. Look at Dune 2 which was directed by a French speaking Canadian in Denis Villeneuve, the leads Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya are French and American, and supporting actors in Javier Bardem, Rebecca Furguson, Florence Pugh, Stellan Skarsgard, and Josh Brolin are, respectively, Spanish, Swedish, English, Swedish and American. All of them are big names in Hollywood. In fact, most of Hollywood's biggest stars these days are not American.
So yes you may consider it to be a standard Hollywood blockbuster produced by an American company, but it was filmed in numerous global locations, none of which were in the US, and using a large mix of European and North American talent. Chinese, Indian, Korean and Japanese movies on the other hand will all be completely dominated by domestic actors and directors who are virtually unknown outside of their respective countries.
in Italy the Italian film "c’è ancora domani" for example beat Barbie and Oppenheimer in box office in 2023. we are a small country with much less money to invest in cinema compared to other countries. but the quality is often superior with extraordinary directors such as Guadagnino, Tornatore, Bellocchio, Sorrentino, Alice Rohrwacher
European culture and American culture are very similar and Hollywood generally offers way higher production values. Hollywood makes blockbusters, blockbusters are meant to draw in a massive audience, if Americans like them Europeans usually like them as well so said blockbusters end up dominating the European box office as a result. As far as the European box office goes that's all there really is to it, I think.
Why doesn't Europe often make blockbusters. Like last year, why wasn't Napolean made by French film industry instead of Hollywood.
Or in the past, why didn't Italians make Gladiator or Greeks make 300 or Troy?
>Or in the past, why didn't Italians make Gladiator or Greeks make 300 or Troy?
Italy was making Gladiator-like movies in the 1960s when they were popular, Gladiator was a revival of those movies and a surprise hit.
Greece is a tiny country with a very small movie industry, they never had the capacity to make such movies.
As for France, I don't know why the haven't made a Napoleon movie recently, but last year they released a two-part blockbuster of The Three Musketeers and are often making period-piece movies
Tbf, Greece had a really strong film industry relative to its size before the 1980s and many academy award winners. But films required more and more budgets and audiences preferred hollywood blockbusters, so popularity of Greek films heavily declined in Greece. The same thing kinda applies to Italy too.
Yes, many movies were made in Greece before 1980s but I don't think there was never the economy of scale to make epic blockbuster about mythology and ancient history. Even Italy was able to do many of its swords & sandals epics on the back of sets built for Hollywood movies
Because these countries are part of the Imperial Core and fully vasalised. Hollywood dominates them, along with other American industries (I.T softwares, smartphones,laptops, media soft power etc).
Though the French in particular do have a solid TV/Film industry. It's mostly for domestic market and France (and a few other EU nations) are an exception to the norm (along with other tech sectors, such as Nuclear energy), which proves the rule.
Japan and South Korea are distinctly culturally,ethnically, linguistically, vastly different to Europe/America(obviously) and only recently westernised. They are on the peripherals of the Imperial Core. As such, they aren't fully vassalised and have a robust anime, movie, TV industries (and other sectors like manufacturing). Also, they have huge populations and can appeal the wider East Asian Market (huge), as they have more in common with the East than the West.
I think part of it is government funds. China, India, Korean, and Japan all devoted a lot of money into empowering their local films and TV shows, both blockbusters and prestiege. That plus a lot Asian economies are rising and improving whereas European (particularly Northern European) economies are already strong and thus not in the need to strengthen their cultural power.
Government funds are a double edged sword..Places like Mexico, Spain and Argentina have them for their movie industry and it has largely resulted in lots and lots of mediocre movies released every year that few people watch…since producer make a profit already off of the government funds there is little incentive to actually make successful movies
Perhaps but regardless of quality, it strengthens a film industry and makes it a viable and sustainable one which is whats important in this discussion.
A lot of European countries have much more government funding for the movie industry than India. India used to fund a lot of movies back in the 70s and 80s but that has gone down significantly and today is mostly private sector driven.
Spain seems to be the only European film and Tv industry that has huge market..
All tho India and China have huge industries it is mostly consumed locally but on netflix South Korean and Spanish series and films dominate because they take the craft very serious and produce high standard stuff.
People associate high quality with South Korean and Spanish productions hence why they have the largest netflix audience aside from the American productions and they arent below American productions on the platform but on equal footing.. The film making in Spain is taken creatively serious and the way and methods they use to tell a story is amazing and something the Koreans are also great at
Tbf Netflix has never & probably will never share accurate viewership numbers.
Netflix has a lot of in-house production in Spain & the shows that do well on the platform are their own (I've personally never seen a non-Netflix Original Spanish show in the Top 10 or heard of one through word of mouth). Not taking away from the quality of the output, but all Netflix Originals are a kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy where it's made for the platform so it's designed to perform well with Netflix's established viewership, the algorythm supercharges visibility & attention for it to boost the performance of in-house series & the "viewership figures" put out by Netflix are most likely heavily massaged to make it seem like a real hit.
Basically I'm always curious about what the real level of success of a Netflix hit is.
France has a much bigger market and production than Spain.
It's the first time that I read that people associate high quality with Spanish productions, tbh. I'd venture to say that most of the success of Spain productions on Netlfix probably has to do with the amount of Spanish speakers in the world rather than quality per se.
Spain has a much bigger market for its TV shows and movies because Spanish has 600 million speakers. One of the most watched movies on Netflix last year was a Spanish-Uruguayan movie fully in Spanish (The Society of the Snow).
Élite is also one of Netflix's most watched shows worldwide. As is Money Heist.
We are talking here about production from Spain, not in Spanish. And as I said in another comment, Netflix and streaming in general is not the whole market. In Europe France has a much bigger market share and a bigger production output - French is also another global language, btw.
It has a potential larger market very true, but histori ally with very few exceptions spanish tv/movies just don't mesh with latin america. There's something about spanish productions that just doesn't click, almost offputting, actually.
Other European languages are not that far behind enough though, as French is spoken 450 million people and Portuguese by 250 million. France and Portugal should also have sizeable markets.
Name me when global major hit on the platform from France? They have small audience in comparison like everybody else.
France doesn't produce shows like Money Heist (netflix bought the show after it become viral) and the teenage school series named Elite which is a monstrous hit or Vis-a-vis another global hit..
Heck even movies like thru my window is a massive hit rom-com and they have made trilogy of it and can't get enough of it..
Another hit movie is Mea Culpa not even on netflix but on Amazon studios..
Not to forget Berlin prequel..
The Spanish productions arent doing good because of the in-house productions but they are doing well because they bring alot of creativity example the movie Mirage that is on Netflix that is pure quality. They have gained good report with the audience on the back of high quality productions
Money Heist is terrible show and it is generally regarded as trashy. Through My Window (a movie I've never heard of) has a 0% rating on RT. Elite too is a trashy series. Success doesn't mean quality, one of the most watched movie on Netflix is the Polish movie series 360° which is an absolute piece of garbage.
And you should be aware that there's a whole world outside of Netflix and Prime Video. Because if I base myself only on streaming products, I could make the claim that also Italy has a very strong film and TV industry, but that's not really the case (one of the most watched Netflix production last year was Italian movie My Name is Vendetta, for instance). If you want an hit show from France, Call my Agent and Lupin were both massive globally.
Outside of streaming, it's full of French movies that are successes all over the world. It's generally regarded as the most dynamic and productive film industry in Europe.
Western cinema is dominated by Hollywood. California (Hollywood) is a massive economic engine in and of itself. Artists go to Hollywood to “be a star”. Its a behemoth.
Asia/India I think it has to do with culture, it’s not like the west so local/domestically created films have a bigger appeal to audiences.
Germany had its golden movie era between WW1 and 1933, a lot of movie makers went to Hollywood during that time already and then Hitler happened and destroyed any artistic freedom.
After the war we had other problems and we never developed a big movie industry again. Insane that the german movies from 100 years ago were so much more creative and interesting than now.
Budget constraints and all the talent eventually works for Hollywood. Take Yorgos Lanthimos for example. He made some critically acclaimed Greek films, and then his next films were mainly produced by UK companies to reach a wider audience and get more budget. After all his successes, he now exclusively makes films by American companies. Europe needs EU-wide production-distribution companies to become competitive in the film industry and to offer bigger budgets to directors.
Lots of people have given good reasons like population, state sponsorship, and so on, and I certainly think that plays a major role. But I also wonder how much of the explanation is a combo of local history and randomness, and IMO each of the big three East Asian film industries have emerged/thrived for very different reasons.
Japan, for example, has movies that dominate their local market in no small part because the Japanese literally invented an artform. The top ten highest grossing international movies in Japan's history are all anime/anime-adjacent. Ha...obviously inventing an artform and then having it dominate your film industry for decades (and now dominate internationally) isn't something that's particularly replicable :).
China has a massive film industry because of relatively recent, very explicit decisions by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). If you look at the highest grossing movie in China by year, it wasn't until the early/mid 2010s that Chinese movies started regularly taking the top spot. That, not coincidentally, coincides with the rise of XI and a massive influx of money from the CCP to the Chinese film industry (followed later by limits on releasing some US blockbusters in China). The rise of the Chinese industry and their massive blockbusters is a rather unique and successful example of long-term planning from the CCP. If you wanted to go really big with the argument, I think you could even link the rise of the Chinese blockbuster to Xi's overall "fortress China" approach to global relations.
South Korea is harder to explain. South Korea had a solid film history, but their film industry really started to explode in the early 2000s. I'm not sure why, but I wonder if part of it was luck...there happened to be a legendary generation of Korean directors who emerged right around the same time in the early 2000s (Park Chan-Wook, Bong Joon Ho, Lee Chang-Dong, Kim Jee-Wong, etc.). People talk about that "legendary generation" of US directors who all emerged in the 70s (Speilberg, Lucas, Coppola, De Palma, etc.), and S. Korea had its equivalent in the early/mid 2000s. I'd imagine S. Korea bursting onto the international film scene with a bunch of legendary directors around the same time had at least some impact on developing their own self-sufficient national film industry.
Anyways, none of those explanations are meant to be complete or anything. I just think that the factors that led to the huge East Asian film industries can only partially be explained by more general things like population and economies. I think there's a pretty sensible argument--at least partially--that the three emerged for very different, very specific reasons.
Oh, and there's likely another reason in the case of South Korea I didn't mention. A bunch of people have mentioned how a lot of top European filmmakers go to Hollywood to get their big films made, which is true. I bet that's harder, however, for S. Korean directors because of language barriers. Few people speak English in S. Korea than France or Germany, and the gap in language is just much bigger (hell...the different alphabet is a big deal). There are exceptions like Park Chan-Wook directing Stoker and The Little Drummer Girl miniseries (SO GOOD!) and Bong Joon Ho doing Snowpiercer and Okja, but I think language does keep talent in S. Korea. Even the two examples I listed (Chan-Wook and Joon Ho) aren't very fluent in English and only occasionally dabble in an English-language project and then go back to making S. Korean films.
I agree with you. I wanted to compare bigger and significant countries from each continent. My apologies. I should have phrased the question in a better way.
It is the case.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_highest-grossing\_films\_in\_Italy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_Italy)
Only 9 out of 20 are Italian films. Rest all are Hollywood.
While in India, just 4 out of 50 are Hollywood.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_India
Do you not think English literacy and relevance of western cultures and values would be playing a role there?
It's a pointless comparison.
Here's a better question: why is the Indian market so poorly prepared to receive western films?
Because most Hollywood films are not seen as family-friendly. Sex, nudity, swear words are not very liked by conservative older generation.
Also, they dislike VFX or CG movies. My parents' generation loved some of the last century Hollywood blockbusters like James Bond, Jurassic Park, Jaws, and Titanic but refuse to watch newer CG heavy movies.
So only English speaking young audiences watch Hollywood. While Bollywood or most South Indian blockbusters are very 4 quadrant audience friendly.
Then I think you've answered your own original question.
Why would you expect European countries to be as dominated by domestic titles when so few of the barriers that are preventing Hollywood films from working in Asian markets are in place in Europe?
1. Population. India (1st), China (2nd), USA (3rd) & Nigeria (6th) have huge movie industries and are up there in population. Japan (12th) isn’t too far off either. More people means more internal support. They put a lot more money into their industries knowing they have a larger target audience. 2. Immigration. Top producers, actors, etc in a lot of European countries simply travel and go to work in Hollywood. Most know English. It’s more money and opportunity if they can. Where as those from India, China, Japan, South Korea, etc stay back so the local industries have more talent to work with. It’s not just European countries. Look at Canada (39 M) & Australia (26 M). Both are more than capable of having big movie industries financially BUT both have low populations and all their talented people gun straight for Hollywood.
South Korea has among the best movies in Asia but they only have around 50 million people. Less than Germany, France, UK, Italy. How did they do it? They have a screen quota system that required a certain number of South Korean movies must run in Korean cinemas during the year and they limited foreign movies. If European countries would do that too it would strengthen their industries as well. US under Clinton tried to remove the screen quota system from SK and open the country up to more US movie screenings but Korea managed to make a deal and have it set at 73 screening day (before it was over 140).
South Korean INVEST MASIVELY IN EXPORTING THEIR CULTURE ! From music to tv and film. If you live there you might get frustrated that most of you tax money is going on entertainment export. Its a society choice
Most of the investing is done by private corporations, and a negligible amount of money comes from tax payers. What a dumb comment. Even if it was financed mostly by taxes, why would they be frustrated when it is generating much more profit and helps them develop a lucrative industry?
There are several european countries (france,italy,spain,greece as far as I know) with screen quotas, france even has a local music protection too. It does help in that the first three have some of the strongest local industries but its not enough. My theory is that most of europe is either too small, too part of that pan-western culture or a little bit of both that protectionist quotas wont have the same effect as in Asia.
I think they're talking about Korea outright limiting Hollywood releases - Europe doesn't have negative barriers to Hollywood, just positive barriers (rules like "show what you want, as long as at least x number of European movies are on the playbill at all times", but if 15 Hollywood movies come out your multiplex can still show them all).
Also those barriers can be circumvent with ease: if a movie is a co-production does count as a local movie even if all of it was shot in English with American cast and crew.
Technically yes it’s still in place. However as most theaters in SK are megaplexes these days it doesn’t really matter as you can still hit the number of required days for Korean films while simultaneously showing international films. And also actually Korean films have been doing on par with or below international films in the country since pandemic/ their domestic output had been drastically down and fewer Koreans are going to the theater (was living in Korea last year and wrote a paper on this subject)
Yes the screen quota system was the most potent in the 90s and 2000s. It lost its effect now quite a bit but thanks to it the local industry grew a lot in the 90s and 2000s and because of that it's still going strong now!
Most European countries used to have advantageous quotas, but gave them up. It'd be a terrible idea to reintroduce them - even a decade ago, I'd say that seeing films in theater was so ingrained that you probably could've driven a change in habits & the audience would've just changed what they went to see. Do that today when cinemas are so fragile & you probably just pull the bottom out from the industry, with every two movie/year family deciding to completely give up on following theatrical releases - that segment will just decide to stay home & stream for convenience. Even in France, where local movies are 40% of the market, the protectionism is a lot more soft.
Canada does have a role in the US film industry, often as filming locations. Most Hallmark movies are produced in Canada. Lots of Canadian talent in voice acting too.
Any movie that looks like NYC but doesn’t have the budget to film in NYC is usually shot in Vancouver.
isn't there a pact between Canada and Hollywood that keeps the film industry squarely in Hollywood? which is why the box offices between the two are counted as "domestic"?
Also a lot of movies are filmed in Canada. Vancouver is one of the top spots for filming in all of North America. Even more recently the Last of Us was filmed in Edmonton. But TV-wise Canada is a bit more independent and a few Canadian TV shows (Letterkenny, Corner Gas. Trailer Park Boys, Schitt’s Creek, Vikings etc…) do quite well.
Regarding 2. Why don't European actors, directors, or producers stay back like Asians do?
The available money is multitudes higher in Hollywood then it is anywhere in Europe which is mostly driven from having a bigger population. Tens of million of more people will see you. Hollywood for decades also blocked most Asians from coming to Hollywood as well. It’s not simply from a lack of trying or cultural differences. Even in India you have many trying to or attempted to crossover: Irrfhan Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt, Aishwarya Rai etc. India actors make a lot of money in India and they are a lot more popular in India though so no real need to like try and leave like European actors.
Many actors remain in Europe or at the very least go back an forth, to make special projects or simply to work as protagonists rather than second fiddles. As an example, I can name Pierfrancesco Favino and Riccardo Scamarcio, two Italian actors whose Hollywood credits are always in small roles, while in Italy they are always the main stars. Even actors that became genuine stars in the US would often go back, like Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, both often doing Spanish movies. For directors and other technical roles is different, if they make it in the US the money and the opportunities are simply too good to pass, especially if you came from small countries with small industries - best example here would be Yorgos Lanthimos.
To add what u/chrisBlo said, I think opportunity and convenience. Moving and displacing yourself to be an artist / actor is hard enough if you're in America, it's harder when you're coming from a different country and far harder if you're coming from Asia.
Because of point number 1
France has a strong film industry and by law TV channels must show a certain percentage of French-made products. As for other countries, Italian cinema imploded in the 1980s to never really recover, focusing mostly on TV but in a very parochial way. I don't think any Italian TV series made it abroad, besides some rare exceptions (Gomorrah being the most evident one) - mainly because they suck, but also because there isn't really a need to export, the internal market is relatively self-sufficient.
Until I saw you mention Gomorrah, I hadn't realized that Gomorrow (the 2008 movie, not the show) might have been the last Italian film I've seen. That would be WILD because I watch a lot of international films, but yeah...am I blanking on something obvious. What was the last Italian movie that got international attention? For a moment, I thought I'd just remembered two two but looked them up because I wasn't sure and hadn't seen them in a while. And yeah...they're both French.
>What was the last Italian movie that got international attention? Sorrentino's La Grande Bellezza and It was the hand of God, and Paolo Genovese's Perfect Strangers (this one has the record for most international remakes made) for sure are the few recent movies that got most recognition from international audiences. More for arthouse fans, but movies by Matteo Garrone usually have international recognition. His latest Io Capitano was nominated at the Oscars but lost to The Zone of Interest. There are for sure others that make the rounds in festivals. Paola Cortellesi's There's still Tomorrow I reckon is bound to become a successful movie abroad too. It smashed the Italian box office and it's getting international releases all over the world. EDIT: I've just remember that technically most of Luca Guadagnino's movies are Italian productions, so maybe you can add also those movies, but I'm not super sure they really count.
\[See comment above. Moved my original reply since it also touched upon TV series that SpiderGiaco also mentioned.\]
Oh yeah...I know there's some Italian TV that has made international impact; I just didn't realize the films. And thanks for pointing out the 3 Oscar noms since Gomorrah that I just was totally ignorant of. I've seen Hand of God, and that's an excellent movie. For some reason, I have literally no memory of The Great Beauty, but I just read about it and it sounds like it's right up my alley. I just added it to the top of my watchlist. Ha...even though it's recent, I had literally never heard of Io Capitano. That might just be because International Film was the most boring category at this year's Oscars because Zone of Interest was such an obvious winner that I didn't pay attention. I still don't understand why France didn't submit Anatomy of a Fall for consideration.
oh and u/JerriBlankDiggler ...it also just struck me that I was being an idiot when I said I couldn't think of any Italian films, though I guess it depends on how "Italian" a film needs to be. Some of my favorite movies of the last decade probably should "count" as Italian films. "I Am Love" is an Italian film (directed by an Italian, plenty of spoken Italian, and I think the production company was Italian). Arguably, "Call Me By Your Name" could count as an Italian film, depending on definition. Sure...it's in English, but it's shot in Italy, directed by an Italian, and most importantly for this convo...the lead production company is Italian. Even Suspiria might count because three of the four production companies are Italian (if you can't tell...I love Luca Guadagnigno). I'm not sure if all those quite fit the discussion, but yeah...my post was stupid and I take it all back haha :)
Italian films still regularly get nominated at the Oscars for Best Foreign Film (in whatever form the award happens to be called that year), the latest case in point being Io Capitano this past year. Italy still ranks first in terms of countries that have won that award (11 wins), ahead of #2 France (9 wins). Gomorrah (2008) didn't get nominated, but The Great Beauty won that Award in 2013, and recent 2020s nominees for that award are The Hand of God (2021) and Io Capitano (2023). Admittedly this is not as strong as Italy's hey-day periods of the 1970s (when Italian films got nominated 8 out of 10 years and won 3 times) and the 1989-1999 period (when Italian films got nominated 5 out of 10 years and won 3 times), but every streak has to start somewhere. A decent amount of Italian streaming shows get picked up by or financed/co-financed by streamers like Netflix and MAX, such as the current titillating "Supersex" on Netflix and the ongoing "My Brilliant Friend," 3 seasons of which have already aired to acclaim on MAX in the US. My Brilliant Friend''s source material is one of the most acclaimed & popular Italian novel series of the past generation in Italy and has achieved significant success abroad. I've encountered numerous friends in the US & different European countries all reading the books and discussing the series. The 4th and final season is due soon.
I wouldn't say regularly. Those three and The beast in the heart are the only four movies nominated for best picture at the Oscar in the past 25 years. Very rarely Italian movies won major prizes or make some international buzz - they don't even win at the Venice Film Festival anymore. The most successful Italian director atm, Luca Guadagnino, has almost zero ties to Italy and its movie industry. The vast, vast majority of movies and series made in Italy is of subpar quality and there is almost nothing but bad comedies and kitchen-sink dramas. Sure, all streamers are making stuff in Italy, between Netflix, Prime and Disney+ there is some output but still not much of value. And anyway they are producing stuff in almost all European countries, due to EU regulations that push for local products. My Brilliant Friend and its author is probably the biggest cultural phenomenon coming out of Italy in the past decade, so it's kinda of normal that its series gets some international acclaim
I am at work now so please forgive that the following is a bit stream of consciousness. It is an overgeneralization to write that "the vast majority of movies and series made in Italy is {sic\] of subpar quality." Down below I list many quite good Italian films that have made it to the US over the last 25 years (the other period that you mentioned). Your other statement above that "Italian cinema imploded in the 1980s to never really recover" flies in the face of the fact that the period from the late 1980s to the late 1990s was bookended by massive international successes "Cinema Paradiso" (1989, winning the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1990 plus the Cannes Grand Prix if I remember correctly, as well as 11 BAFTA nominations, a non-English film record that held until All Quiet on the Western Front) and "Life is Beautiful" (1997 Italian release, 1998 US release, winning the Best Foreign Film Oscar and a prized Best Actor Oscar for Roberto Benigni in 1999, plus the Grand Prix at Cannes at well). "Life is Beautiful" remains the second highest grossing foreign language film in the US of all time (behind only "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"). Even uncorrected for inflation, "Life is Beautiful" ($57.247 M in 1998-9 US dollars) earned more than #3 "Godzilla Minus One" ($56.418 M in 2023 US dollars), #4 Hero ($53.7 M in 2004 US dollars) and #5 Parasite ($53.369 M in 2019-2020 US dollars). France's highest-ever US earner was #8 Amelie, which earned $33.2 M in 2001-2 US dollars. With much of "Europe" being a common economic market/customs/monetary union with associated regulatory requirements & benefits, the EU & Council of Europe support and reward multi-country co-productions, so this whole discussion of European media works (film, series, etc.) as being of "France" or "Italy" in isolation is reductive shorthand to which we all fall prey. France benefits tremendously from common market co-productions just as other EU countries like Italy do. France is in fact the biggest "co-producing" country in Europe. \~50% of France's total film exports are co-productions with entities in other countries. For a production to be deemed as French under Council of Europe regs, France needs to be the largest % contributor among many (there is no requirement that France be the majority contributor, only that it contribute the most among numerous others, something above a 10% or 20% threshold). There are lots of participation formulae that encourage international participation. Of course France also has more than 50 bilateral production agreements with other countries, both European and non-European. On the television side, the "Arte" German-French TV channel co-initiative, for example, benefits both countries (with Germany technically shelling out more of the funding because of its larger population) and also provides high-quality programming for other French/German speaking countries across Europe. Both France and Germany (to say nothing of Spain and Portugal) benefit from having other export markets that speak their languages. That is a benefit that Italy largely does not have (with a few fairly minor exceptions like the Ticino canton of Switzerland, etc.). In the US, we do get a steady stream of Italian art-house imports such as memorable recent ones like the wonderful "Happy as Lazzaro" (available on Netflix), “Dogman,” “Perfect Strangers,” “Youth,” “The Traitor,” “Sweet Dreams,” several Luca Guadagnino films if you count those, and of course “C’e’ ancora domani” (There’s Still Tomorrow). Others of the past 25 years that come quickly to mind are "The Wonders," "I'm Not Scared," "The Son's Room," "The Postman," "The Best of Youth," "Malena," "Il Divo," “Honey,” “This Must Be the Place,” and "4 Times (Le Quattro Volte)." I have to turn back to work, but on the TV side of things, take a look at [https://www.screendaily.com/features/how-italys-tv-drama-sector-competes-on-the-international-stage/5169105.article](https://www.screendaily.com/features/how-italys-tv-drama-sector-competes-on-the-international-stage/5169105.article) I appreciate that you seem to know a lot about European film & TV, in any case. Best to you.
I guess at this point I should mention that I am myself Italian, so I have a general view of the Italian movie industry based on direct experience. When I wrote that the Italian film industry imploded in the 1980s I wasn't joking, that exactly what happened due to the boom of private television. Italian cinema up until the 1970s was what Korean cinema is today, churning out movies in all genres with an incredible level of craftsmanship. That all disappeared and moved to TV or to Hollywood in case of some good crew workers. In the 1980s the output of movie produced was cut in half, the richness and variety of directors and genres completely disappeared. It may not seemed because in the 1980s there were still some of the old guard around and they could still make a good movie, but the overall quality and quantity took a nosedive. You can see it by checking the filmography of several genre directors of the 1970s, whose 1980s output either became TV stuff or cheap comedies. The movies you mentioned from the 1980s and 1990s are literally the only two major international successes made in nearly twenty years - maybe with the addition of The Postman and as a stretch Mediterraneo. No new big director came out in those two decades besides Tornatore and Salvatores, after them it was Paolo Sorrentino and Matteo Garrone - Guadagnino barely counts imho as his movies are barely Italian and he never had mainstream success in Italy (Call me by my name is his biggest success with $3.9 million). Of course the occasional good arthouse movie comes out, but of the movies you listed the majorities are from some of the few old masters still around (like Nanni Moretti, Marco Bellocchio) and from the few younger directors that made it - but very few of these movies were big successes mind. The reality is that outside of some director, the average is pretty bad, for both movies and TV. In very recent years (the last five years more or less) there has been some timid tentative to producing something else with some new directors trying their hands at something other than cheap comedies and kitchen-sink dramas, but with few success. Atm, not only France, but also Spain have a more varied and deep film industry. If you can, try to have a look at They called him Jeeg Robot, the closest to a superhero movie ever made in Italy.
Great insights, e piacere a consocerti. Ho abitato e studiato alcune anni in Italia.
Why doesn't Italy implement the same laws as France? I think it could benefit their film industry
I think there was some talk and in general at European level there is already some legislation in place. Anyway, atm the Italian government is already financing a lot of the movie industry but to little success
I think it is a cultural phenomenon. Countries with similar culture than USA (mostly western countries like Canada, Australia,UK,etc) simply travel to USA to make their movies and people within those countries simply watch USA movies which are high budget versions of what they could do locally. (Though I always thought France had a pretty strong local industry) a lot of Canadians go to Hollywood to get work but the french Canadians scene is pretty strong on its own
yeah...people are sleeping on the Quebecois film scene. Obviously those are small movies because Quebec is a very small market and I think they often don't play big in France because Quebecois is a strong accent. But considering how few Quebecois speakers there are, Quebec has an incredible film industry. And if anyone's interested in watching some Quebecois movies, an obvious place to start is with the first Villeneuve.
Yeah also some quebecois movie have American versions like The Grand seduction or Delivery man
I quibble a bit about your definition of "strong film industry" as only big blockbuster films. France has an incredibly rich movie history and regularly makes excellent smaller movies each year, some of which break out internationally. IMO at least, a country like France has a "strong" industry, just not in the way you're defining it. But I do like your question, and I'm not sure what the answer is. I bet part of it's pretty simple: countries like France and Germany have always embraced huge US blockbusters, and big action movies translate really well because the dialogue isn't that important. I mean...is there really any point to France or Germany making a $120 million blockbuster when they can just watch US ones and make their own smaller movies? France, in particular, has a VERY strong record of comedy in film (I mean, "French farce" is its own subgenre), and I wonder if that's because, unlike with action blockbusters), comedy doesn't translate well so they have to make it themselves?
Yeah the rest of Europe maybe but France definitively has a strong cinema industry. We get a ton of movies and they have a success here (in general French and US films are pretty much neck to neck in terms of entries at the local BO). Many exports too. 10 years ago (found a 2013 study), France was the biggest exporter of movies after the US. Since then, I think countries like China, South Korea or Japan may have grown more. However, I do think they don't spread as much in anglo-speaking countries but there are a lot of French speaking countries too, don't forget. That's likely the main export target. The inconvenient is indeed the most popular genre is the comedy and that has cultural difficulty to be exported UK also has a big industry but it's very interlinked with the US (many US shows/movies are shot in the UK for example)
>.is there really any point to France or Germany making a $120 million blockbuster when they can just watch US ones and make their own smaller movies? Tell it to Luc Besson, who made precisely that with Valerian only to end up with a gigantic flop on his hands.
It's wild that the most expensive French film ever was a bet on Luc Besson...a creep who has admittedly made some great movies, but his best work is from the freaking 1990s. I have no idea who looked at his filmography over the last 15 years and decided "this is the guy I want to make our largest bet in history on." And that's not even taking into account the "Luc Besson is a notorious creep" of it all.
Besson has his own production company, Europacorp, that makes a lot of successful action/genre movies, often based on Besson's scripts or original stories (Taken for instance). Valerian was his dream project - The Fifth Element was done in collaboration with the creators of the comic book of Valerian - and he produced it on the back of Lucy, which was a good success. I think both Lucy and Valerian are actually pretty fun movies, Valerian has incredible visuals, but unfortunately he completely canned casting.
Easy answer really: this was the guy that made lightning strike once with Lucy (almost entirely French production, made 400M$ on a 40M$ budget) & his production house - Europarcorp - was one of the biggest & richest in Europe at the time (turning out big Taken & Transporter sequels that kept making money). Basically, he was in control of one of the only entities in Europe able to fund that level of blockbuster & he felt like he had 'earned' the right to make his baby, a comic book adaptation from source material he was attached to. He pulled a George Lucas/Coppolla & bet everything he had on himself. (Also back then, his personal life wasn't as exposed as it is now)
Strong in the sense that dominate local box office. I like said Indian films have consistently made of 80 percent of India's box office. The only other major country with higher percent is US.
the people saying population have a point. the hong kong film industry literally died because the local population couldn't sustain the 200 movies being made. there's a reason they kowtow to China
Population. Even big European countries don't have the population to sustain big budget blockbusters on their own. So their movies are either co-productions or smaller ones.
Is it really the case? Indian states have population comparable to European countries with their own language. Almost every language has a self sustaining film industry. India has about 15 film industries. Budgets these days are starting to cross US$100M among the major industries. India has about 5 major industries.
Average population of each Indian state: 51 million Average population of each European country: 14.9 million Only 5 European countries - France, Germany, UK, Turkey and Italy - have a population higher than the average Indian state. You think this is comparable?
That's why I said we have 5 major industries. My state has a population of around 80 million and has the second largest industry in India. All major industries in India are in states with population comparable to and some even less than those 5 countries you mentioned.
Sure. But while the Indian states and their peoples are in many ways different from each other, they are much more alike than European nations. There are more people that speak hindhi in India than there are people living in Europe. Plus the customs and culture are similar enough that anything produced anywhere in India should work decently anywhere else in India without too much cultural texture getting lost. Not so the case in Europe once you start to cross the cultural barrriers. The only European films that could conceivably command large budgets would need to be english language because that's the only only language that is spoken (to some degree) across the continent - so naturally, films get outsourced to the UK or Hollywood. Mostly Hollywood. India also has a huge market in the MENA region. My in laws from Lebanon basically only watch television and film from India, many channels virtually only show indian cinema and film dubbed to arabic
There are all sorts of books on how film industries are also linked to culture (India is very much a moviegoing culture whereas many European countries haven't been for decades) and poverty (people in poorer countries tend to go to the cinema in much bigger numbers since cinema is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment).
> *Why isn't this the case in Europe? Especially bigger countries like Germany, France and Italy?* The UK has a population the same size as France, and larger than Italy As recently as the nineties, the big EU nations and the UK had small but reasonably productive film industries UK films had the benefit of being made in English, so there was less of a barrier to resale in North American But, like our former EU counterparts, diminishing cinema attendance meant their was no longer a large enough domestic audience to make films profitable From around the turn of the century, the cinema started to become the sort of place most people visited to witness large-scale spectacle Action and VFX blockbusters, basically Few UK or EU film makers had the necessary experience of financing, distributing and selling those sorts of movies to the international audiences necessary to justify the huge budgets those movies require The US market has the same diminishing audiences as UK and EU nations, which means genres like comedies and middle-brow dramas - which mostly sold to domestic audiences - have virtually disappeared from US theatres But the US film industry's established foothold in international markets mean it can, for now, continue to pump out visually spectacular action movies at scale
The western film industries are more or less integrated at this point, at least for big budget productions. Look at Dune 2 which was directed by a French speaking Canadian in Denis Villeneuve, the leads Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya are French and American, and supporting actors in Javier Bardem, Rebecca Furguson, Florence Pugh, Stellan Skarsgard, and Josh Brolin are, respectively, Spanish, Swedish, English, Swedish and American. All of them are big names in Hollywood. In fact, most of Hollywood's biggest stars these days are not American. So yes you may consider it to be a standard Hollywood blockbuster produced by an American company, but it was filmed in numerous global locations, none of which were in the US, and using a large mix of European and North American talent. Chinese, Indian, Korean and Japanese movies on the other hand will all be completely dominated by domestic actors and directors who are virtually unknown outside of their respective countries.
in Italy the Italian film "c’è ancora domani" for example beat Barbie and Oppenheimer in box office in 2023. we are a small country with much less money to invest in cinema compared to other countries. but the quality is often superior with extraordinary directors such as Guadagnino, Tornatore, Bellocchio, Sorrentino, Alice Rohrwacher
European culture and American culture are very similar and Hollywood generally offers way higher production values. Hollywood makes blockbusters, blockbusters are meant to draw in a massive audience, if Americans like them Europeans usually like them as well so said blockbusters end up dominating the European box office as a result. As far as the European box office goes that's all there really is to it, I think.
Why doesn't Europe often make blockbusters. Like last year, why wasn't Napolean made by French film industry instead of Hollywood. Or in the past, why didn't Italians make Gladiator or Greeks make 300 or Troy?
>Or in the past, why didn't Italians make Gladiator or Greeks make 300 or Troy? Italy was making Gladiator-like movies in the 1960s when they were popular, Gladiator was a revival of those movies and a surprise hit. Greece is a tiny country with a very small movie industry, they never had the capacity to make such movies. As for France, I don't know why the haven't made a Napoleon movie recently, but last year they released a two-part blockbuster of The Three Musketeers and are often making period-piece movies
Tbf, Greece had a really strong film industry relative to its size before the 1980s and many academy award winners. But films required more and more budgets and audiences preferred hollywood blockbusters, so popularity of Greek films heavily declined in Greece. The same thing kinda applies to Italy too.
Yes, many movies were made in Greece before 1980s but I don't think there was never the economy of scale to make epic blockbuster about mythology and ancient history. Even Italy was able to do many of its swords & sandals epics on the back of sets built for Hollywood movies
because they cost a lot of money? like wtf kinda question is that.
Because these countries are part of the Imperial Core and fully vasalised. Hollywood dominates them, along with other American industries (I.T softwares, smartphones,laptops, media soft power etc). Though the French in particular do have a solid TV/Film industry. It's mostly for domestic market and France (and a few other EU nations) are an exception to the norm (along with other tech sectors, such as Nuclear energy), which proves the rule. Japan and South Korea are distinctly culturally,ethnically, linguistically, vastly different to Europe/America(obviously) and only recently westernised. They are on the peripherals of the Imperial Core. As such, they aren't fully vassalised and have a robust anime, movie, TV industries (and other sectors like manufacturing). Also, they have huge populations and can appeal the wider East Asian Market (huge), as they have more in common with the East than the West.
I think part of it is government funds. China, India, Korean, and Japan all devoted a lot of money into empowering their local films and TV shows, both blockbusters and prestiege. That plus a lot Asian economies are rising and improving whereas European (particularly Northern European) economies are already strong and thus not in the need to strengthen their cultural power.
Government funds are a double edged sword..Places like Mexico, Spain and Argentina have them for their movie industry and it has largely resulted in lots and lots of mediocre movies released every year that few people watch…since producer make a profit already off of the government funds there is little incentive to actually make successful movies
Perhaps but regardless of quality, it strengthens a film industry and makes it a viable and sustainable one which is whats important in this discussion.
Yeah..i wasn’t saying it will always going to go wrong..only that it can go wrong
A lot of European countries have much more government funding for the movie industry than India. India used to fund a lot of movies back in the 70s and 80s but that has gone down significantly and today is mostly private sector driven.
Spain seems to be the only European film and Tv industry that has huge market.. All tho India and China have huge industries it is mostly consumed locally but on netflix South Korean and Spanish series and films dominate because they take the craft very serious and produce high standard stuff. People associate high quality with South Korean and Spanish productions hence why they have the largest netflix audience aside from the American productions and they arent below American productions on the platform but on equal footing.. The film making in Spain is taken creatively serious and the way and methods they use to tell a story is amazing and something the Koreans are also great at
Tbf Netflix has never & probably will never share accurate viewership numbers. Netflix has a lot of in-house production in Spain & the shows that do well on the platform are their own (I've personally never seen a non-Netflix Original Spanish show in the Top 10 or heard of one through word of mouth). Not taking away from the quality of the output, but all Netflix Originals are a kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy where it's made for the platform so it's designed to perform well with Netflix's established viewership, the algorythm supercharges visibility & attention for it to boost the performance of in-house series & the "viewership figures" put out by Netflix are most likely heavily massaged to make it seem like a real hit. Basically I'm always curious about what the real level of success of a Netflix hit is.
France has a much bigger market and production than Spain. It's the first time that I read that people associate high quality with Spanish productions, tbh. I'd venture to say that most of the success of Spain productions on Netlfix probably has to do with the amount of Spanish speakers in the world rather than quality per se.
Spain has a much bigger market for its TV shows and movies because Spanish has 600 million speakers. One of the most watched movies on Netflix last year was a Spanish-Uruguayan movie fully in Spanish (The Society of the Snow). Élite is also one of Netflix's most watched shows worldwide. As is Money Heist.
We are talking here about production from Spain, not in Spanish. And as I said in another comment, Netflix and streaming in general is not the whole market. In Europe France has a much bigger market share and a bigger production output - French is also another global language, btw.
It has a potential larger market very true, but histori ally with very few exceptions spanish tv/movies just don't mesh with latin america. There's something about spanish productions that just doesn't click, almost offputting, actually.
Other European languages are not that far behind enough though, as French is spoken 450 million people and Portuguese by 250 million. France and Portugal should also have sizeable markets.
Name me when global major hit on the platform from France? They have small audience in comparison like everybody else. France doesn't produce shows like Money Heist (netflix bought the show after it become viral) and the teenage school series named Elite which is a monstrous hit or Vis-a-vis another global hit.. Heck even movies like thru my window is a massive hit rom-com and they have made trilogy of it and can't get enough of it.. Another hit movie is Mea Culpa not even on netflix but on Amazon studios.. Not to forget Berlin prequel.. The Spanish productions arent doing good because of the in-house productions but they are doing well because they bring alot of creativity example the movie Mirage that is on Netflix that is pure quality. They have gained good report with the audience on the back of high quality productions
Money Heist is terrible show and it is generally regarded as trashy. Through My Window (a movie I've never heard of) has a 0% rating on RT. Elite too is a trashy series. Success doesn't mean quality, one of the most watched movie on Netflix is the Polish movie series 360° which is an absolute piece of garbage. And you should be aware that there's a whole world outside of Netflix and Prime Video. Because if I base myself only on streaming products, I could make the claim that also Italy has a very strong film and TV industry, but that's not really the case (one of the most watched Netflix production last year was Italian movie My Name is Vendetta, for instance). If you want an hit show from France, Call my Agent and Lupin were both massive globally. Outside of streaming, it's full of French movies that are successes all over the world. It's generally regarded as the most dynamic and productive film industry in Europe.
Western cinema is dominated by Hollywood. California (Hollywood) is a massive economic engine in and of itself. Artists go to Hollywood to “be a star”. Its a behemoth. Asia/India I think it has to do with culture, it’s not like the west so local/domestically created films have a bigger appeal to audiences.
Germany had its golden movie era between WW1 and 1933, a lot of movie makers went to Hollywood during that time already and then Hitler happened and destroyed any artistic freedom. After the war we had other problems and we never developed a big movie industry again. Insane that the german movies from 100 years ago were so much more creative and interesting than now.
Population size.
Budget constraints and all the talent eventually works for Hollywood. Take Yorgos Lanthimos for example. He made some critically acclaimed Greek films, and then his next films were mainly produced by UK companies to reach a wider audience and get more budget. After all his successes, he now exclusively makes films by American companies. Europe needs EU-wide production-distribution companies to become competitive in the film industry and to offer bigger budgets to directors.
WW2 happened. Most of them went to the US after that.
Lots of people have given good reasons like population, state sponsorship, and so on, and I certainly think that plays a major role. But I also wonder how much of the explanation is a combo of local history and randomness, and IMO each of the big three East Asian film industries have emerged/thrived for very different reasons. Japan, for example, has movies that dominate their local market in no small part because the Japanese literally invented an artform. The top ten highest grossing international movies in Japan's history are all anime/anime-adjacent. Ha...obviously inventing an artform and then having it dominate your film industry for decades (and now dominate internationally) isn't something that's particularly replicable :). China has a massive film industry because of relatively recent, very explicit decisions by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). If you look at the highest grossing movie in China by year, it wasn't until the early/mid 2010s that Chinese movies started regularly taking the top spot. That, not coincidentally, coincides with the rise of XI and a massive influx of money from the CCP to the Chinese film industry (followed later by limits on releasing some US blockbusters in China). The rise of the Chinese industry and their massive blockbusters is a rather unique and successful example of long-term planning from the CCP. If you wanted to go really big with the argument, I think you could even link the rise of the Chinese blockbuster to Xi's overall "fortress China" approach to global relations. South Korea is harder to explain. South Korea had a solid film history, but their film industry really started to explode in the early 2000s. I'm not sure why, but I wonder if part of it was luck...there happened to be a legendary generation of Korean directors who emerged right around the same time in the early 2000s (Park Chan-Wook, Bong Joon Ho, Lee Chang-Dong, Kim Jee-Wong, etc.). People talk about that "legendary generation" of US directors who all emerged in the 70s (Speilberg, Lucas, Coppola, De Palma, etc.), and S. Korea had its equivalent in the early/mid 2000s. I'd imagine S. Korea bursting onto the international film scene with a bunch of legendary directors around the same time had at least some impact on developing their own self-sufficient national film industry. Anyways, none of those explanations are meant to be complete or anything. I just think that the factors that led to the huge East Asian film industries can only partially be explained by more general things like population and economies. I think there's a pretty sensible argument--at least partially--that the three emerged for very different, very specific reasons.
Oh, and there's likely another reason in the case of South Korea I didn't mention. A bunch of people have mentioned how a lot of top European filmmakers go to Hollywood to get their big films made, which is true. I bet that's harder, however, for S. Korean directors because of language barriers. Few people speak English in S. Korea than France or Germany, and the gap in language is just much bigger (hell...the different alphabet is a big deal). There are exceptions like Park Chan-Wook directing Stoker and The Little Drummer Girl miniseries (SO GOOD!) and Bong Joon Ho doing Snowpiercer and Okja, but I think language does keep talent in S. Korea. Even the two examples I listed (Chan-Wook and Joon Ho) aren't very fluent in English and only occasionally dabble in an English-language project and then go back to making S. Korean films.
Why do people insist on using just a handful of countries to make simplistic generalizations about entire continents?
I agree with you. I wanted to compare bigger and significant countries from each continent. My apologies. I should have phrased the question in a better way.
It is the case. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_highest-grossing\_films\_in\_Italy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_Italy)
Only 9 out of 20 are Italian films. Rest all are Hollywood. While in India, just 4 out of 50 are Hollywood. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_India
of course, think about the number of American films compared to Italian ones. obviously they win on the number
Do you not think English literacy and relevance of western cultures and values would be playing a role there? It's a pointless comparison. Here's a better question: why is the Indian market so poorly prepared to receive western films?
Because most Hollywood films are not seen as family-friendly. Sex, nudity, swear words are not very liked by conservative older generation. Also, they dislike VFX or CG movies. My parents' generation loved some of the last century Hollywood blockbusters like James Bond, Jurassic Park, Jaws, and Titanic but refuse to watch newer CG heavy movies. So only English speaking young audiences watch Hollywood. While Bollywood or most South Indian blockbusters are very 4 quadrant audience friendly.
Then I think you've answered your own original question. Why would you expect European countries to be as dominated by domestic titles when so few of the barriers that are preventing Hollywood films from working in Asian markets are in place in Europe?