While the United States’ box office went into serious decline in 2005, British audiences turned out in force to drive record box office profits in Great Britain. Most responsible for the box office boom in the UK were home grown British films like Wallace & Gromit and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. So, you’d think Hollywood would look to further their investment in Great Britain. Instead, they’re doing what they usually do in these situations, the exact opposite of what makes sense.
The Guardian is British, and thus not exactly relevant to me as a newspaper, but their online film section is a frequent must read for me. Today they’re reporting that Hollywood will continue their recent trend of abandoning the UK as a production base in favor of other, lower cost, Eastern European countries. That probably explains why you keep hearing about so many movies being shot in Prague. Put simply, the British film industry continues to be decimated, despite record breaking revenues. The Brits are hopeful that adjustments in their tax law will help change things to bring production back, but if ticket sales won’t do it, perhaps they ought not expect to much help from tax breaks either.
American attendance in America goes into decline and so Hollywood raises ticket prices, puts more annoying advertising in front of their movies, and green lights more crappy sequels that no one wants to watch. Audience attendance in the UK increases with more British-based production and so Hollywood starts pulling everything out and heading to Eastern Europe. Makes perfect sense doesn’t it? I’m sure it’s all the fault of piracy or DVD.
The movie industry of course has their reasons… they’re all money driven. This is no different than American manufacturing jobs running to Mexico or sweat shops in South America. Those places can do it cheaper, even if they aren’t the ones generating the cash that buys those products in the first place. In this case though it makes a little less sense than usual. Sure, it may be cheaper to shoot in Prague than in London, but if British audiences are making it a point to support British filmmaking over work done somewhere else, then it would seem to me that investing in the British film industry is a lot like investing in yourself. Hollywood, shortsighted as ever, is of course only looking at how much it’s going to cost them to hire a cameraman next month.
