Hollywood studios are enjoying their biggest ever box office take from overseas markets, according to a report in Weekly Variety.
The six studios’ collective international box office was up 20 per cent in 2010 over 2009, with Hollywood taking $12.69 billion of the $20 billion in overseas ticket sales. During the same period U.S. box office remained flat. Although the studios see huge potential for growth and income overseas by adding more foreign language productions and acquisitions to their slates , with rising middle classes creating bigger box office in many territories, some are concerned about too much production and prefer to focus instead on bigger tentpole pictures in the U.S., says the magazine. William Morris Endeavor’s international division co-head Elia Infascelli tells Weekly Variety: ” On paper, the move towards producing local films is a business that makes sense. You can make more money from releasing local-language productions, grow local talent, find projects for remakes and feed overesas distribution pipelines. And in a world where 70 per cent of the box office is now overseas, you get to cast more stars from international territories, have a relationship with them earlier and a high chance of putting them in your movies.”