Globalization Movie Production

The world wide movie business with its incredibly large cultural and economic impact is mainly driven by its regional growth and exports. The organization of the film industry is undergoing a significant transformation trough globalization.

While the export rates of US and UK movies were exceptionally high for many decades, new competition from many areas has grown over the last few years resulting in a growing number of Asian and European movies that are now exported globally. The transformation towards globalization also relates to the production of movies and provides the industry with many new opportunities and new venues in which to produce their films. While Hollywood increasingly outsources production activities to different countries like India or other film nations, European film productions are becoming increasingly international as well вЂ" a huge share of the world entertainment market still rests with Hollywood. Yet more than half of the audiences for many of blockbusters hail from outside of the USA. Things are changing on the global stage and Hollywood may no longer be the biggest driver or may no longer have the lead role in this globalized industry.

The purpose of this paper is it to provide information about the trends in films and moviemaking and provide a background about the factors that have impacted on the globalization in the movie industry. In addition, our research not only covers a territorial review, broken down into sub-countries but also gives an overview of movie distribution, broken down into the same sub-countries. We have attempted to give an over-view of the share of local markets and the spending on movie marketing by each region.

World Trends in Movie Production

World film production levels hit 4,603 feature films in 2005 a significant increase over the previous year and the highest level recorded in 17 years. The increase was mainly attributed to the European film production.

In Western Europe for example, 1,009 feature films were produced. However, co-productions accounted for over 44 % of the titles produced in Western Europe in 2005, up from 39.7 % in 2004, which may be influenced by a certain degree of double-counting. In Eastern Europe, there were an additional 40 films coming out of the region in 2005 for a total of 278.

In South America, feature production continued to rise. In North America, independent producers were mostly responsible for the additional 88 feature films primarily shot in the US.

In Asia, the increase in feature production was led by the major feature film territories of India and China. Only Middle East and African regions recorded a slight dip in total feature production.

The following spread sheet covers the numbers of feature films that were produced in the most important countries. It covers information about the whole world and also numbers of co-productions.

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What`s happening in Europe?

United Kingdom:

The UK production sector recorded a poor year. Figures from the UK Film Council, indicates that production fell by nine films, to 123. There were 37 British films, 25 films of вЂ?inward investment’ and 61 co-productions. Production investment for all films stood at Ð'Ј568m ($981.5m) - down 31 % on 2004, and this was down 30 % on the previous year. The reason is clear - Foreign investment fell from Ð'Ј548.5m ($963.3m) in 2004 to Ð'Ј312.0m ($548m) in 2005. There were a total of 8 big budget films produced in 2005 (those produced with budgets of Ð'Ј30m or more), the same number as in 2004. Investment in British films rose to Ð'Ј159.8m ($280.6m) in 2005. The uncertainty caused by expected changes in the economic environment is partly behind this drop, as is price-led competition from other countries, and an unfavorable exchange rate.

Previously the UK’s existing film relief scheme was based on the sale and leaseback system, which was no longer regarded as overly competitive against other programs in Europe.

The wider implications for UK independent film producers are that they are expected to benefit from the increased and available film network infrastructure such as post-production facilities as a result of companies wanting to have more processing in the UK. It is also expected to reduce so-called �tax tourism’ from foreign producers. In terms of Hollywood studios, the new deal is expected to put the UK back on the film-making map.

France:

The production sector in France continued its impressive growth in 2005, with a record 240 films produced. This is an increase of 18.2 % over the 203 in 2004. Of the 240 films, 187 were of French initiative (up from 167 in 2004), of which 61 were co-productions. Total investment in film production rose by 22.6 % to €1.28bn ($1.53bn). There were 53 minority co-productions in 2005, up 17 on 2004. This is attributed to new regulations allowing foreign investors to work in France with local companies.

Germany:

The total number of films produced in Germany hit 146, of which 43 were documentaries, bringing total feature film production closer to 103, but nonetheless an 18.3 % increase on the 87 features produced in 2004. There were 60 films of German origin which was the same as the previous year. The major growth came from the number of co-productions which rose to 43 from just 27 the previous year. Of the co-productions, 18 were majority led German co-productions leaving 25 features in which Germany had a minority production status.

Italy and Spain:

Italy produced 98 films. Rome is the production capital of Italy and companies here participated in 78.0 % of all film projects. The total investment from the Italian film business sector reached €214.4m, of which 85.8 % was provided by Rome based film industry.

Spain’s production boom continued into 2005, and market share success of local-interest films is also rising. In 2005, 142 feature films were produced in Spain, of which 53 were international co-productions. This is a rise of nine films compared with 2004, and 49 compared with 2000.

Belgium:

A total of 28 features qualified as Belgian productions, although the vast majority of these (26) were co-productions. Belgium had a minority role in 20 feature productions, and major