The homegrown indie-film sector characterized by prestige movies is suffering, but moviegoers are getting relief. Similarly-crafted, high-minded movies are playing in the U.S. that streamers commissioned from overseas producers.
A case in point is German-made World War I drama “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which Netflix gave a truncated U.S. cinema run.
All the U.S. streamers show a knack for nudging foreign producer/suppliers to make content that straddles the line between arty and Hollywood commercial. When locals overseas are calling the shots alone, the films tend to veer to the arty and lack a broad market appeal.
Earlier examples of the Hollywood touch sprinkling their commercial sensibilities on foreign-made films involve U.S. majors co-financing and co-producing. These include the “Harry Potter” franchise led by Warner Bros., the James Bond 007 spy flicks, Chinese-language blockbuster “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” in 2000 (co-produced by two units of Sony Pictures Entertainment) and British boutique producer Working Title producing hits such as “Bridget Jones’s Diary” that is owned by Comcast’s NBC Universal.
U.S. streamers operate their services overseas, so they commission local content. For example, Netflix budgeted €500 million ($571 million) for German-language productions between 2021 and 2023. The streamer said Wednesday it will premiere 25 Korean films and TV series this year, its largest annual output for any territory, and in November signed a big deal for originals from leading Japanese multimedia broadcaster Nippon TV.
Netflix spends about $17 billion a year in total globally, which increasingly tilts toward originals and away from acquiring rights to existing programing from third parties such as Hollywood major studios. That’s about double the production budgets for movies (excluding TV programs) from all the Hollywood major studios. Netflix has a handful of hit TV series made overseas including dystopian drama “Squid Game” from South Korea, and also British royal family yarn “The Crown” and upper-crust period drama “Bridgerton” both from the United Kingdom. High-profile original Netflix films include French dance-girl drama “Cuties” (which triggered an uproar over teen sexualization), gritty Spanish prison drama “The Platform” and mid-budget actioner “Lost Bullet” from France.
The U.S. independent film sector, which is hardscrabble even in the best of times, has been shrinking in cinemas because video streamers acquire the cream of films, which then skip or have reduced theatrical windows. Cinema closures due to the pandemic are a further strain. Independent distributors now account for 8-10% of cinema boxoffice, down from 10-15% that is the historical norm (the indie total includes boxoffice from the specialty distribution arms of major studios, whose films are indie-caliber).
Netflix is making a splash in the U.S. with its R-rated “All Quiet” import, which opened in cinemas Oct. 28 and appeared on the streamer the following day. Netflix generally has not pushed wide theatrical runs and does not allow boxoffice grosses for its films to be publicly reported. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, and received a commercial theatrical release in Germany that same month, which qualifies it for many cinema awards.
“For the second row, the film was the #1 non-English film with 39.9M hours viewed and was in the Top 10 in 90 countries,” says a Deadline.com article by Justin Kroll about its U.S. play. “‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ is Germany’s country selection for the Oscars and is above 90% fresh for critics and audiences alike on Rotten Tomatoes.”
Those are all impressive stats!
While overseas originals commissioned by streamers pop up on U.S. screens, exposure is mostly on small TV screens and any play on the big “silver screen” in cinema takes a back seat.
New York Post critic Johnny Oleksinsk laments about German-language “All Quiet“: “It’s sensory-overload, tough-though-rewarding viewing. Gargantuan and detailed (and with English subtitles), it’s a rotten shame the movie has been mostly relegated to TV streaming and not getting a wide theatrical release. The film deserves the grandest canvas — not an old Dell laptop.”
“All Quiet” is based on a 1929 novel in Germany from a war veteran that, while a fictional story, was hailed for its realistic capture of the horrors of WWI. A Hollywood-made adaptation released in 1930 was an early “talkie” film with sync sound and was also acclaimed, winning Oscars. The current Netflix adaptation is the first German made “All Quiet” movie, which is appropriate because the source novel is from German literary icon Erich Maria Remarque.
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