Globalizing movies: Time for the All-World Film?

About a year and a half ago, I wrote about the internationalization of film. There were three big trends that I was watching: 1. the rise of online streaming platforms; 2. the rise of international casts; and 3. the development of a global audience.

Since I wrote that post, a lot has happened. As such, I wanted to revisit some of these ideas.

So, what’s happened?

The rise of Netflix and the struggles of the big screen

Perhaps most significantly, Netflix has become a prolific and far-reaching content creator.

I remember that a few years ago, it was noteworthy that Netflix was producing its own content. I even wondered what the point was – why spend tons money on creating content when you can make money from simply providing content created by others? It is clear now that I was missing the big picture, because since then, Netflix has become so successful with its own content – as well as the stocking of other content – that many people, including myself, have found little need for a cable subscription at all. Netflix originals are not side-projects to the Netflix game – they have become its MVPs.

As The Economist writes, “This year [Netflix’s] entertainment output will far exceed that of any TV network; its production of over 80 feature films is far larger than any Hollywood studio’s. Netflix will spend $12bn-13bn on content this year, $3bn-4bn more than last year.” (3)

Moreover, this has had serious implications for how people view television and movies, and how both are made and marketed. Most significantly, people are foregoing the theater experience in preference for home viewing, a trend that has been evidenced in comparatively dismal ticket sales in the United States.

The Economist writes: “Frequent filmgoers—those who go once a month or more—have dwindled, from 28% of North Americans in 2002 to 11% in 2006, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. The average American goes to the cinemas only to take in a big-budget spectacle or the occasional buzzy hit.” (1)

Moreover, as the other major streaming producers (Amazon, Hulu, Google) catch up to Netflix, these trends will likely proliferate.

Blockbusters hold up the struggling big screen

This new reality – one where the computer screen siphons the popularity of the big screen – has spurred the established American production companies to put their funds into large blockbusters – basically, what they feel are sure bets, including sequels and remakes – think Fast and Furious, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars, and the Marvel and DC movies. Disney, for example, makes few films each year. However, it is “investing almost exclusively in blockbusters, [which] is paying off with a much higher rate of return.” (2)

Interestingly, this is an approach that has been popular in India for decades, where theater attendance is extremely important (as there has not been a lucrative market for movie rentals). As such, the Indian film industry offers an interesting case study when predicting how Western production companies will approach the big screen in the years to come.

When film became popular in India in the early 1900s, it entered a scene already populated with variety programs, single events that featured short plays, dances, songs, and other mediums of entertainment. As film found its footing, it followed this established path, with the first movies in India offering “an omnibus package of diverse entertainments.” It was “an amalgam of several discrete commodities loosely stitched together rather than a single commodity.” This tradition led to what some call the ‘Masala’ (a mix of spices) approach to filmmaking, which offers a little bit to everyone in a single film. Moreover, this heritage survives in much of mainstream Hindi cinema today, where films contrast comedy with drama, dancing with car chases, singing with dialogue, etc.

Now, while I find it unlikely that the use of singing and dancing will be widely repeated across the world, it is notable that many Western blockbusters increasingly offer a package similar to that found in mainstream ‘Bollywood’: namely, big budgets, many filming locations, and a creative mix of comedy, romance, drama, and action (think the recent Mission Impossible movies, for example). To me, these similarities make a lot of sense. If a production company can only afford to make a few big budget films, it needs to ensure that the films that it does make are attractive to as large an audience as possible. Dwindling are the days of the niche-subject blockbuster.

The battleground is no longer domestic; it is international

With competition heating up, going for the blockbusters is not the only strategy. Competitors are also seeking an edge by expanding the playing field. Or more accurately, expanding the audience.

In 2017, the last time I wrote about this subject, I posed the following question: How long will it be before locally-focused production houses stop playing spectator to the outputs of their global competitors and start competing with them on their own turf, in their own language?

Since then, Netflix has more than answered that question. Some of Netflix’s biggest hits have been in languages other than English, such as Dark (German), Narcos (Spanish/English), and Sacred Games (Hindi). Interestingly, Netflix released a video on YouTube that relates the plot of Narcos to planning a trip to Goa in India. Amazon has done something similar with Indian comedians performing in a style reminiscent of the Amazon show, Marvelous Mrs Maisel.

In its pursuit of the global market, Netflix has become more than an American company; it has become an international trendsetter, with most of its subscribers living outside of the United States. As The Economist notes, “Unlike all other FAANGs [Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google], which are global but unmistakably America, Netflix is becoming truly international: it makes TV shows in 21 countries, dubbing and subtitling them into multiple languages.” (3)

Here again, I see interesting parallels with the history of Indian cinema. As with the world, India is a land of many languages and diverse cultures. And while its parts are unique, they are connected none-the-less. Indian filmmakers have done many things to address this linguistic and cultural diversity when making and sharing films; I’ll mention two of their strategies.

One, they release the same film in multiple languages. A recent example of this is Baahubali (Part 1 and 2), which was released simultaneously in Hindi, English, Telugu, and Tamil. A global parallel is Kung Fu Yoga, which was released in English, Mandarin, and Hindi (and features well-known actors from both China and India).

And in the case of Netflix, there is Mowgli, a film that draws from the characters of Rudyard Kipling’s Junglebook. The film was simultaneously released with dubbing by both well-known English-speaking and Hindi-speaking actors.

Image source.

The second strategy taken by Indian film producers was the pursuit of the ‘All-India Film’, a movie that used the tools of the “omnibus song-dance spectacular” and “subordinated them to an all-encompassing entertainment formula designed to overcome regional and linguistic boundaries” (4). Basically, the film would offer entertainment that would resonate with as many Indian viewers as possible.

With this in mind, it doesn’t seem too far a stretch that filmmakers across the world may try to make a movie that could be called an ‘All-World Film’, one that taps into themes and storylines that, perhaps through research, the production company believes will resonate with all humans, across all borders. Disney, notes The Economist, “has focused on big-event films with iconic characters and storylines that have global appeal.” (2) This seems like a trend that will continue.

As an example, when I watched English-language xXx: Return of Xander Cage, I couldn’t help but notice that the plot seemed culturally open (and thus not prohibitive), featured film locations across the world, and included some of the largest actors in American, English, Indian, Chinese, and Thai cinema. The film also had the mix of comedy, drama, and action common in mainstream Hindi cinema.

Note: Just a few days ago, BBC offered this informative overview of the state of global film-making for a global audience.

A few caveats

While I think blockbuster films will increasingly focus on a global audience and globally resonant themes, feature global casts, and accommodate multiple languages, there are many questions to ask and caveats to note.

The first relates to language. How can films best accommodate the many languages of their audiences? Dubbing has been popular in India. But what about subtitles? These are commonly used in the United States. Then there are shows like Narcos on Netflix, which uses both English and Spanish and offers subtitles to those that need them for 50 percent of the show’s content if they only know one of the two (whether English to Spanish, or Spanish to English).

The second caveat is that while films may cater to an international audience, many won’t; they will continue to focus on a domestic, or single-language market. And that makes sense. The world is full of well-developed and highly accomplished film industries, such as those in the USA, Germany, Norway, Iran, Italy, South Korea, China, Japan, and India, to name just a few. Other countries also have very popular television industries, such as in many of the countries just listed, but also in Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan, again, to name just a few.

Moreover, filmmaking is an important medium through which populations, whether regional, national, etc., express a sense of collective identity. As Ashish Rajadhyaksha notes when discussing the All-India Film, “This was never going to be a solution to the main problem that India now faced, which was that several of these regions, possessing a coherent linguistic identity in a way India itself never did, also possessed local histories of nationalism that could simply not be in any easy way accommodated into their Indian variant. Local identities now demanded autonomous recognition” (4). There are plenty of Chinese and Indian films, for example, that show both countries playing larger and larger roles in regional and global security, a theme that reflects their actual growth in this regard.

Moreover, if there will ever be such a thing as the All-World Film, it will be worth examining whose culture or ideas are given more sway than others? Is it even possible to make something that will resonate and represent all equally? Chidananda Das Gupta described the All-India Film as an attempt at “cultural leadership” in a culturally diverse environment. What does cultural leadership through film look like on the global scale? What should it look like? Should it exist at all? As The Economist notes, “Some suspect that Netflix harbours ambitions to monopolize TV. Such a move would concentrate enormous amounts of cultural power in the hands of a few commissioners and algorithms.” (3)

Third, the All-World Film is a concept that seems in line with the needs of the big screen. On the computer screen, however, niche-subject films will find global audiences previously thought impossible. As such, the proliferation of digital streaming may be a major boon for independent cinema, and niche-subject film may draw millions of views across the world, while being relatively small successes in any one country. As the Economist notes, “On average, 60% of the viewers of an individual creator’s YouTube channel live outside the country where the artist is based.” (2) A look through the libraries of Netflix and Amazon underscores the point – the options and variety feel almost endless.

Conclusion

As with the last time I explored these subjects, jumping into them simply unearths more questions – questions about the survivability of the movie theater, the roles of the internet and film in molding a global culture, and the path that such a culture may take. But questions are not a bad. Rather, they are like films; they offer prisms through which we can examine the world and ourselves in a new way. With that in mind, I look forward to seeing what comes next. Happy viewing!

References

1. “Blockbusted: Not even ‘The Last Jedi’ will reverse Americans’ retreat from cinemas.” The Economist. December 14, 2017
2. “Winner tales all: Mass entertainment in the digital age is still about blockbusters, not endless choice”. The Economist. Feb 9, 2017
3. “Netflixonomics: The tech giant everyone is watching”. The Economist. June 30, 2018
4. Rajadhyaksha, Ashish. Indian Cinema: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions). Oxford University Press

Cover Photo by Alex Litvin on Unsplash