Hollywood Looks Overseas for Talent and Profit

Hollywood Looks Overseas for Talent and Profit
Over half of ticket sales for American movies now come from other countries. But the industry sees billions lost to piracy. Transcript of radio broadcast:
28 February 2008


This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

This year, something happened at the Academy Awards that had not happened since nineteen sixty-four. All the winners for best acting were from outside the United States.

Daniel Day-Lewis and Tilda Swinton are British. He won best actor for "There Will Be Blood"; she won best supporting actress for "Michael Clayton." French actress Marion Cotillard won the Oscar for best actress for "La Vie en Rose." And Spain's Javier Bardem won best supporting actor in "No Country for Old Men."

Hollywood is increasingly looking outside America's borders for stars and profit.

Jonathan Taplin is a professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. He says that today, about fifty-four percent of the ticket sales for Hollywood studios now come from outside the United States.

For the last three months of two thousand seven, foreign sales totaled about eight hundred eighty million dollars. But there is fierce competition for each movie dollar.

Hollywood has lost market share in some places as other countries develop their own film industries. For example, in the mid-eighties, American films had eighty percent of the market in South Korea. Today that share is about forty percent.

Hollywood also faces competition from illegally copied movies, a major issue to the Motion Picture Association of America. The trade group estimated more than eighteen billion dollars in worldwide losses from piracy in two thousand five.

Hollywood reporter Alan Silverman says piracy has influenced how American movies are released. In the past, Hollywood studios waited months after the American release of a film to release it in foreign markets. Now, many aim to release films at the same time around the world.

Foreign markets may also influence how people get their movies. Different nations have different levels of technology.

Efforts to settle on the next-generation DVD got a lot of attention recently. Sony's Blu-ray technology for high-definition televisions won the competition with Toshiba's HD DVD format.

Yet DVD sales have dropped in recent years. This may be a sign that people are increasingly getting their movies off the Internet. The Internet is another front in Hollywood's war on piracy. But more than that, it presents complex business questions for an industry now built mostly on DVD and ticket sales.

And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.

----------------------------Google Translate

好莱坞期待海外人才和利润
超过半数的门票销售美国电影，现在来自其他国家。但业内人士认为，几十亿失去盗版音乐文件。全文电台广播：
2008年2月28日

这是美国之音特别英语经济学报告。

这一年，发生过什么事，在奥斯卡奖颁奖典礼说，没有发生自1964年。各得奖者为获得最佳代理来自美国以外的公司。

每天丹尼尔-刘易斯和tilda swinton是英国人。他获得了最佳男演员奖" ，将有血" ，她获得了最佳女配角奖为"迈克尔克莱顿" 。法国女演员马里恩cotillard赢得了奥斯卡最佳女演员的" La角逐恩玫瑰" 。和西班牙的哈维尔巴尔登赢得了最佳男配角，在"没有任何一个国家，为老男人" 。

好莱坞是越来越看美国之外的边界为星级和利润增长。

乔纳森塔普林是一个教授，他在南加大安嫩伯格学院的沟通，在南加州大学。他说，今天，大约有54 ％的门票销售好莱坞制片厂，现在来自美国以外的公司。

在过去3个月的2000七，国外销售总额约8.8亿美元。不过，有竞争非常激烈，每部电影的走势。

好莱坞已经失去的市场份额，在有些地方，因为其他国家发展自己的电影产业。例如，在八十年代中期，美国电影有百分之八十的市场份额，在韩国。今天这一比例大约是百分之四十。

好莱坞也面临着竞争，从非法复制电影，一个重大问题，向美国电影协会。该贸易集团估计逾18亿美元，在世界范围内损失从盗版在2000五名。

好莱坞记者梁家杰Silverman ）表示，盗版行为的影响如何，美国电影是释放。在过去，好莱坞制片厂，等待几个月之后，美国发布的电影将它释放在国外市场上。现在，许多旨在释放影片在同一时间，世界各地。

国外两个市场，也可影响人们如何得到他们的电影。不同的民族有不同的技术水平。

努力解决对下一代DVD获得大量的关注。索尼公司的蓝光技术，为高清晰度电视赢得了竞争与东芝的HD DVD格式。

但DVD的销售已下降近几年。这可能是一个迹象，人们也日益得到他们的电影小康互联网。互联网是另一个战线在好莱坞的战争盗版。但更重要的是，它呈现复杂的业务问题，为一个产业，现在大多建于DVD和销售门票。

这也是该美国之音特别英语经济学报告，写马里奥里特尔。我史蒂夫Ember公司。