American comedies underperform overseas
This subject has popped up every few months for the last decade or so, and here is the latest, a NY Times article yesterday covering the same territory.
When I first stumbled into Hollywood, the “international market” would cough up about half the revenues generated in domestic box office. That number has changed:
“According to a report in The Hollywood Reporter, foreign revenue collected by the six biggest American studios rose 9 percent, to $20.2 billion, in 2007, even as domestic revenue fell 7 percent, to $22.7 billion.”
Using my sixth grade math skills, I believe that foreign income is now about 90% of domestic numbers. And yet, conventional wisdom is that comedies have a hard time selling overseas. Or at least some comedies:
“But the more uniquely domestic comedies of this year are already showing some soft spots. “Drillbit Taylor,” of which Mr. Apatow was co-producer, was a disappointment for Paramount: it has taken in just $32.8 million in the United States, and less than half of that abroad. “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” also Apatow-produced, did somewhat better for Universal. It has had $62 million in domestic ticket sales, and $27 million around the world, with openings in some important markets still ahead.”
As a screenwriter, you have to confront this issue when dealing with agents, producers, studio execs re ancillary revenues from overseas. Comedies that rely on a lot of dialogue and specific American cultural references = bad. Comedies that favor lots of physical humor and big action = good.
The NY Times article focuses on Judd Apatow comedies as having a particularly hard time translating overseas. Uh-huh. Well, Apatow’s comedies, with their medium-to-low budgets, make tons of dough stateside, so in terms of foreign revenues — whatever!
Seriously, if you write comedy scripts, you would be well advised to bear in mind these numbers. But mainly I wanted to post the article to get to this quote:
“Of course, all Hollywood movies can’t appeal equally to all cultures. A half-serious maxim among those who edit movies for airlines says that you cut violence for Europeans, sex for Asians and both for Americans.”
No sex and violence for Americans? For shame!