More Than Ever, Hollywood Studios Are Relying on the Foreign Box Office - New York Times
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 6 — In 1998 the director Bryan Singer was asked to give a speech at the Tokyo International Film Festival to introduce his movie “Apt Pupil.” Mr. Singer, who often traveled toJapan, decided to surprise the crowd by speaking in Japanese.
After a brief greeting, Mr. Singer hoped to say, “I look forward to seeing you after the film.” But instead he bungled the translation, suggesting that he was looking forward to having sex. The crowd gasped. “It was,” he said in an interview on Thursday, “a disastrous mistake.”
So before he returned to Tokyo last week to promote “Superman Returns,” Mr. Singer said, he practiced his Japanese — a lot.
Much has changed since, besides Mr. Singer’s mastery of Japanese, as Hollywood increasingly looks to global markets to bolster the bottom line. Movie attendance has declined in the United States over the last decade, forcing studios to cultivate a wider audience. And combined with the increasing cost to make and market films, many here agree that having an overseas strategy is more important than ever.
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 6 — In 1998 the director Bryan Singer was asked to give a speech at the Tokyo International Film Festival to introduce his movie “Apt Pupil.” Mr. Singer, who often traveled toJapan, decided to surprise the crowd by speaking in Japanese.
After a brief greeting, Mr. Singer hoped to say, “I look forward to seeing you after the film.” But instead he bungled the translation, suggesting that he was looking forward to having sex. The crowd gasped. “It was,” he said in an interview on Thursday, “a disastrous mistake.”
So before he returned to Tokyo last week to promote “Superman Returns,” Mr. Singer said, he practiced his Japanese — a lot.
Much has changed since, besides Mr. Singer’s mastery of Japanese, as Hollywood increasingly looks to global markets to bolster the bottom line. Movie attendance has declined in the United States over the last decade, forcing studios to cultivate a wider audience. And combined with the increasing cost to make and market films, many here agree that having an overseas strategy is more important than ever.