Assignment 6: Global Trends

U.S. Films - Including Netflix Features - Clean Up at International Box Office

When the average person in the U.S. talks about how well a movie does at the box office, they usually ignore success in other countries.  Most of us lead very U.S.-centric lives and don’t really think about the billions of people in other countries.  Movie studios, however, care very much.  Not only do many regular theater films do well in other countries, but many U.S. movies that are "direct-to-video" releases also do well there.  Those movies are usually not the kind that most of us see (aside from a few popular animated superhero movies).  Now there are original movies on streaming services.  Netflix has been doing original feature films for a while, but now they have many successful ones (at least, as far as we can tell - Netflix doesn't release their viewing statistics).  Most of their successful films do really well internationally. "More than 52 million of its 104 million subscribers now come from outside the US.," according to the Guardian.  Video Clip

Action films do the best overseas because it doesn't matter if the audience understands English or can relate to the nuances of the characters. These movies have likable characters and plenty of fights, car chases, shoot-outs, and crashes to enjoy (not to mention plenty of special effects).  For instance, "Black Panther," based on a comic book, is making almost as much money in other countries as it has domestically. It's making 900 million dollars already, worldwide, in its first week overseas.  If we look at the 100 top-grossing films worldwide of all time, they're all films with plenty of action, and most are from this century (aside from the original "Star Wars"). Video Clip

In an age where borders often seem non-existent, due to the internet, people from other countries can see many of our shows and movies easily, and vice versa (sometimes not legally).  Netflix reaches almost every country in the world, making it easier for anyone to watch TV shows and movies on any device. Their content varies for each country, due to copyright issues. Of course, you can watch the most Netflix content in the U.S.  International viewers used to be able to use a Virtual Private Network to watch U.S. Netflix, but Netflix figured out how to block VPN's. There are other ways, of course, and I'm sure that there always will be. No matter how you block one type of invasive software, there are going to be people motivated enough to come up with another. Video Clip

Some of our American action heroes, like Will Smith, are even more popular internationally.  Netflix's scifi/fantasy/action movie "Bright," which starred Smith, pulled in 11 million viewers internationally in the first 3 days.  Not long ago, in 2015, film studios were worried that Netflix movies were not doing well, but that is no longer true. A lot of these films, including “Bright,” are panned by the critics, but viewers love them (including non-U.S. viewers). Netflix is already planning to make a sequel to "Bright." Major movie studios, like Paramount and Universal, can now choose to sell their films directly to Netflix, rather than showing it at the theaters. A few years ago, they may have put the movies in the theater at a time when they wouldn't have made much money, and then sold the DVD's, or did "ancillary sales," such as to TV or Pay-Per-View; now they can sell it to Netflix instead.  Some in Hollywood think that this will hurt the movie business in the long run. Only time will tell. Check out this list of the best original Netflix films. Video Clip
 

Although some of the successful Netflix feature films get poor reviews from Critics, others are loved by them, just like "regular" films in the theater. Some are critical successes, and some are box office successes, and few films are both. Netflix won their first Oscar this year for Best Documentary Feature (for "Icarus") and several of their films were nominated as well.  Amazon Prime, another streaming service, won Oscars last year for "Manchester by the Sea" and "The Salesman" (Best Foreign Language Film). Having conquered TV, it appears that streaming services are now a force to be reckoned with for feature films, both in foreign and domestic sales. Video Clip