Response to comment about Canadian Films

I'm not sure if anyone goes back and reads answers I leave to comments so I thought I would post this separate. This comment was left on the post I did about most of the Canadian Box Office money going to American films.

The only reason I had heard of Passchendaele is due to Paul Gross - he was interviewed everywhere on Canadian media. If marketing is so expensive, can't something be done on a grass roots level? More local film festivals, have articles in the local free newspapers, get the word out on blogs like this? Also, where can I find these movies? I doubt the cinema chains will play Canadian movies, so is the London public on dependent on Hyland to bring in these movies? It is a shame that Canadian films do not get the spotlight as the American films - I guess it all comes down to the money that can generated.

I have a few things to say about this.

Canadian films are in a bit of a vicious circle, they don't make a lot of money so they don't have a lot of money to spend on making or marketing them. There is something a bit pathetic that a horrible movie like Bride Wars makes many many millions more than any Canadian film.

The theatres, including Western Film, are in a similar vicious circle, we would like to play Canadian films but we have bills to pay so we end up playing mostly American stuff because that's what people will pay to see. The Hyland plays more than most as most Canadian films are of the kind of quality film the Hyland specializes in. I play Canadian when I can but few Canadian films get to the level of awareness needed for enough people to show up. I think the last Canadian film I played before Passchendaele was Trailer Park Boys. In its' first night at Western Film Twilight almost grossed as much as Passchendaele did all week.

There is hope, of a sort. I noticed today that a sequel to Trailer Park Boys is slated for the fall. That means a Canadian film did well enough to make a sequel?!

As for the marketing aspect referenced above. Part of the problem there is a perception. If people haven't seen commercials on TV for a film it somehow doesn't register as legit. TV happens to be one of the most expensive forms of advertising...

I think the change to Digital Projectors will help a lot. Prints will be cheaper and easier, making distributing Canadian films easier and cheaper. One of the best advertising things for films are trailers in front of other films. Trailers on film are also relatively expensive, when the trailers are all digital they will be played in front of more films. There's lots of good films I ask for trailers for but never get on film.

This reminds me of a situation that happened at a theatre I worked at that's always stick with me. I was out in the lobby and a woman was looking at a movie poster for some film that was coming soon. She said in a dismissive tone 'never heard of it'. I almost went up to her and said that was what the posters were for, to let people know about upcoming films. There has to be a first time one 'hears' of a film.

Hollywood Drives Canadian Box Office (duh!)

According to The Hollywood Reporter:

TORONTO -- Tinseltown continues to dominate the Canadian boxoffice. Total Canadian boxoffice in 2008 rose to CAN$920.4 million ($735.2 million), compared with CAN$904 million in 2007, according to the Motion Picture Theatre Associations of Canada, which represents domestic exhibitors. But Canadian films raked in just CAN$26 million ($20.7 million) in ticket receipts, down from CAN$28 million the year prior. About CAN$815 million ($651 million) of the 2008 total came from Hollywood, according to MPTAC, with another CAN$67.4 million ($53.9 million) coming from indie releases and CAN$12.1 million ($9.6 million) from French movies that played theatrically in Quebec. In a country that represents roughly 10% of the North American market, the biggest Canadian boxoffice draw last year was Warner Bros.' "The Dark Knight," with CAN$50.7 million ($40.5 million) in receipts, followed by Paramount's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" ($22.6 million) and "Iron Man" ($21.2 million). The market share for U.S. films in Canada last year was 89%, up from 87% in 2007. The slice of the pie for English-language Canadian films held steady at 0.9%, while the market share for French-language films from Quebec fell from 3.2% in 2007 to 2% last year. Alliance Films' "Passchendale," a homegrown war epic, at CAN$4.43 million ($3.5 million) in receipts, accounted for roughly half of the $8.88 million ($7.1 million) in boxoffice last year derived from 66 English-language films released domestically. French-language films from Quebec included Alliance Films' "Cruising Bar 2" with CAN$3.46 million ($2.7 million) in boxoffice, followed by Alliance Films' "Babine" with CAN$2.23 million ($1.78 million) in receipts.

I find it very disappointing that Canadian films gross so little. I've seen some great Canadian films so it's not that the movies aren't there. I think it's a combination of a couple things. Mostly it's marketing and awareness, it's hard to compete with Hollywood money for advertising. Marketing a movie is expensive. The marketing budget for an average Hollywood movie is about $50 million, quite a bit more than it cost to make Passchendaele, the most expensive Canadian film ever made. There's been several times Canadian films have shown up at The Hyland and I'd never heard of them. One that really comes to mind was called Three Needles, that was a great film but it completely vanished.
The other reason is Canadians' attitude towards their own films, for some reason the general public tends to view our films as inferior, which is why you often see some Canadian films try to disguise their Canadian origins. In fact I think it's the reverse, Canadian films tend to be better in the same artistic way that leads the horrible Bride Wars to out gross the much better Rachel Getting Married. Basically a good film requires a brain to watch.

It's kinda a shame that the highest grossing Canadian film last year happened to be one that wasn't very good. Passchendaele was an interesting idea but just wasn't executed well.

Funny Canadian Film Fest posters.

I discovered these posters through one of my favorite movie blogs Cinematical. Never heard of the festival but they make funny posters. My favorite one is thumb nailed here.