25 Feb Film Fund-amentals: Why Hollywood Is No Longer Number One

According to a recent Sky News report, China will soon outstrip Hollywood in film production. In a recent piece from the Agence France Presse, China is now number two to the US market in ticket sales. Though Hollywood movies produce the stronger revenue at the Chinese box office, there are increasingly powerful exceptions. The biggest current hit in the Asian market is the Chinese movie Journey to the West.

Of course, all estimates about who is number one in the international market is always open to debate. It depends upon how you frame the question. The American box office is number one in the amount of money made primarily because of the cost of tickets in the US. In reality, American movie attendance has been in steep decline for years (and will continue dropping). Heck, that attendance decline is one of the reasons why theaters keep upping the ticket cost.

Likewise, American mainstream movie production has dropped. Currently, Hollywood only produces about 15 per cent of the movies made internationally. We are way behind India in the amount of movies made, and almost as far behind as Nigeria. Eventually, Nollywood will surpass Hollywood in sheer terms of output.

But does this matter?  After all, we have Johnny Depp and they don’t. More importantly, Hollywood has the kind of money that can buy Johnny Depp, and they don’t. Money – and lots of it – has always been the secret to Hollywood. In theory, the Hollywood cinema took global dominance because of its superior quality. In reality, it had to do with a series of extremely convenient historical factors.

The first was the formation of the classical Hollywood studio system. The classical studio system was a vertical and horizontal monopoly structure that gave Hollywood an incredible financial base from which to dominate the international film market. No other country had this model; arguably, the closest were fascist cinemas of Germany and Italy in the 1930s, which enjoyed a unique control of the European market.

In the aftermath of World War II, these rivals were kaput, and Europe became Hollywood’s backyard. Besides, most all foreign competitors lacked a “special something” that Hollywood had in its favor.

Before I continue, let me post a quick disclaimer. I am about to engage in a highly subjective and completely idiosyncratic presentation of film history. If you should come across books on film history presenting the subject in the following manner, you should immediately toss them.

What Hollywood had – and that everyone else lacked – was a solid sense of crap. I am using the word “crap” in a completely non-judgmental sense. There is “good crap,” and then there is “bad crap.” Hollywood had successfully created a foolproof formula for churning out lots of pretty-OK crap. Oh sure, various foreign filmmakers could create artistic masterpieces that would make the average Hollywood flick look like a pale imitation of nothingness. But a film industry does not create a large audience with artistic masterpieces. It survives by producing movies that audiences will consume in large quantities. For every occasional outlier like Citizen Kane, Hollywood managed to produce hundreds and hundreds of Westerns, soaps, comedies and other types of completely enjoyable crap.

Throughout the post-World War II era in cinema no other country could equal Hollywood’s production of crap. Oh sure, the Italians gave it a try (and still do). Occasionally, the Italian crap movies would even become significant and turn into major important films (for example, the Westerns of Sergio Leone). But basically, Hollywood had a stranglehold on the mainstream crap market.

But that was then. This is now. Hollywood is no longer able to make good, dependable crap. Sure, they can still crank out the occasional significant or exciting movie. But they no longer know how to crank out solid, reliable crap. For that stuff, you have to go to TV; and, to be honest, the average filmed drama on TV is currently better than the average Hollywood movie.

If you go back and scrutinize recent success stories of Chinese movies like Journey to the West, you may notice something. By all account, this movie is a fun bit of Hong Kong stylized crap. It is lively; it is well done; and it is finding a very large audience in the increasingly vital Asian market. Hong Kong has long been a major player in the international B movie market. As they successfully integrate into the Chinese movie system, they bring to China something that the Chinese didn’t have in their system. They bring major entertainment crap to the production table.

Previously, China has produced great cinema. Many of the major films of the Fifth Generation movement are milestones in modern international cinema. If you care about the art of the cinema, these films are a must. But if you are looking for fun, check out Kung Fu Hustle.

In the emerging collision between Hollywood and China (and trust me, it will turn into a type of collision), you have got to keep an eye on the crap. Crap has always been a major determining factor in the film business. Hollywood has become shoddy in its ability to make good crap. China is learning how to successfully make entertaining crap.

Which means that the crap is about to hit the fan.