Trends In Film : It’s No Laughing Matter

According to Variety magazine, American comedy films – counter-intuitive to the industry’s long-held wisdom that foreign audiences only want action and epics with stars – are becoming far more popular across the rest of the world.

If you study the article and other movies that have done well overseas, you’ll see several trends that are worth noting in film.

- Variety sells. Audiences want a broad range of movies, not just Hollywood comic book blockbusters or star-driven comedies.

- Freshness sells. Audiences quickly tire of the same-old, derivative Hollywood formulas.

- Physicality sells. It’s hard to understand Woody’s long-winded philosophizing in foreign languages.

- Wit sells. Too many Hollywood comedies are heavy-handed.

We’re amused that after all these decades that the Hollywood executives, monitoring last month’s blockbusters, are surprised when their rearview mirror view of movie trends is bad at predicting the future surprises on the road.

Filmmaking has always been like driving on a curvy, twisty road — or as Hollywood likes to say: “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what to expect.” If their conservative accountants and lawyers stopped looking in the rearview mirror at last month’s box offices and took on fresh, new projects (e.g. The Passion of Christ, Fahrenheit 9/11 etc.), they might do better not only overseas, but in the U.S. too!!

Contributed by Sheridan Tatsuno of Dreamscape Global