UK vs USA movies

S

shafiqdms1

New member
Why don't we invest as much money in making films as America.

I mean we have the talent and half of them go to work in America because not enough money is invested in british films.

I know that a lot of british companies are used by Hollywood for sfx and music but why not make british films as big as Americans movies and have them all made here.
 
American films generally have more domestic (to the US and Canadian market) and global appeal. British cinema doesn't. I mean, it's hard enough convincing most Brits to watch their own country's films, nevermind an international audience.

Take a film like Moon - that film was the best British film of 2009 imo, but absolutely TANKED in the UK, and its only salvation came from Americans.
 
Recent British comedies have been woeful. Three and Out and Run Fat Boy Run. All pretty formulaic but lack something that genre comedies in the US have.

Not sure as it seems to be because they are basically TV movies. They get the TV stars from sketch shows and stick them in a film.
 
UK films = Mostly Public funded.
US movies = Vastly Privately funded.

UK films = Bureaucrats choose which films get made and what their budgets are.
US movies = Studio executives and private financiers choose what movies get green-lit and their budgeting.

UK films = Mainly filmed within the UK with few being filmed abroad.
US movies = Mainly filmed within the USA with more than a few being filmed abroad.

UK films = The cast is nearly always British using regional British accents.
US movies = The cast is mostly North American with more than a few Internationals using comprehensible dialects.

UK films = Less than 50 films a year.
US Movies = 100's of movies a year.
 
Just look up the american domestic market vs foreign for films on box office mojo
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=wall-e.htm
Here's wall-e since we don't have uk toystory 3 numbers yet(current total 235million). American domestic total was 223 million dollars for wall-e. United Kingdom and Ireland and Malta combined total was a mere $41 million.
The scale of the market affects the viability of investment.
 
It was loved by the online geek community, but not so much the mainstream mass market. And even then, it was a Universal Studios production, and they aimed for a global audience. (Most Edgar Wright films do.)
 
Another thing to remember is that US films have a long established distribution route to the world market that UK films generally lack.

iirc, the Hammer films were as successful as they were on an international level because they had deals with major US companies to distribute them.
 
I dunno about that, production and distribution are some what separate. The distribution companies buy distribution rights from other companies all the time, so uk film has every chance of using the same distribution channels as any other. The shopping for films goes on at film festivals all the time. Its just that if no one thinks they can sell a film internationally, they aren't going to buy.
 
Do you think there is a correlation between the success of a film and the regionality of the accents in it? To my ears it sounRAB like big Hollywood productions tend to use actors with generic American accents - the US equivalent of RP - whereas independent productions use more regional American accents. Conversely successful British films seem to have either RP or non-regional English accents so it may be that British audiences prefer the American perception that we all talk like Hugh Grant.
 
Erm.. ok, you win?!?!

I wasn't basing my opinion on anything other than what I like and dislike personally. I like European cinema... not all of it... but most of it I have seen. The ones I have seen are more popular ones. I don't go looking through archives for unknown films. I see, I guess, the European equivilent to Hollywood and the ones I have seen I like.

I have seen a lot of European films... I just never seen the Princess and the Warrior until recently. I haven't seen Jackie Brown. That doesn't mean I haven't seen the rest of Tarantino's films (because I have). To name a few which were quite big European films which I like: Run Lola Run, Goodbye Lenin, Amelie, L
 
Movies are usually relatively more successful in their country of origin than elsewhere. The US market is huge, in many cases enough to fund these huge budget films even without taking international revenue into account. The UK market is many times smaller, so unless they can be very successful internationally, there isn't enough of a domestic market to justify investing so much in each film.
 
I'm saying you shouldn't come to such a strong opinion until you've actually exposed yourself to enough foreign film to actually support it. Cherry picking only the few films exceptional enough to travel into international markets is not a basis for claiming that european films are all this or that, let alone superior. Leon is pretty old, and barely french, Goodbye lenin was about as overrated as it gets, even its sound track was clearly almost a rip off. One directors films is not comparable to the cinematic output of an entire country in any way. Its like someone saying they've seen tarantino, and now they know about the rest of american cinema. Its absurd. Don't try to justify lack of real experience with foreign film, if you don't have it, you don't have it. Theres no shortcut, let alone one that lets you make over arching proclamations about outputs of entire countries. Its telling you can't even name one great european film from this or last year. goodbye lenin? amelie? run lola run? you are going back years and years to cherry pick and argument.

There are 27 countries in the eu. You've barely named a few films out of just two countries over a span of many years. If european film were filled with incredible quality content then where are the 27 other amelies from the year of amelie? How many films were created during just that year alone in the eu? You have to ignore a vast amount of dreck to make the claims you are making.
 
I'm not arguing any more. It's pointless. I like European film over Hollywood because it's dull. I am comparing relatively popular European film to Hollywood, and the former wins for me. It's that simple.
 
You are right, you cling to a position based on totally inadequate evidence, experience, or personal research, so clearly there's some other underlying reason for you to take such positions. None of the possibilities are very flattering.

I watch film and judge it on its own merits, not by some kind of regional prejudice.
 
Back
Top