A decade ago, the international box office barely even registered on the radar of studio executives. Total box office performance came almost entirely from the US box office. To obtain some form of international sales, studios tried to veer audiences toward film plots. Essentially, customers were being lured to products instead of products being tweaked for its customers. If you ask me, that sounds like pretty bad business. In today’s day, the economics of the business have changed.

According to the Wall Street Journal, international box office is much more of a player in todays film business world. The WSJ.com did an interview with Anchorman director Adam McKay in which he explains how his newest Summer film, The Other Guys, experienced a tweak for the abroad movie goer. The film stars Mark Wahlberg, Will Ferrell, Samuel L Jackson, and The Rock. The article states that “A key plot point of the film [The Other Guys] involves Mr. Wahlberg and Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter. Sony’s executives initially worried that Mr. Jeter—and the joke that involves him—would seem too American. They found a solution: The studio asked Mr. McKay to spend his summer re-shooting those scenes with international sports stars, and it went after soccer stars David Beckham of England and Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal.”

If anyone remembers, Gillette did something similar to this when they replaced Thierry Henry (famous soccer player) with Derek Jeter for their US shaving commercials. Their foreign shaving commercials used Henry along side Tiger Woods and Roger Federer.

In this case, movies are being tweaked for their audiences instead of the other way around.  In the article, McKay says “It’s a whole new way of looking at movies. ” Rather than trying to veer your audience toward the film, just tweak your film to the audience. Next, I’d like to start tweaking movies by region, one version for the Midwest, another for the East Coast, and the South.”  McKay brings up a good point. The film Fever Pitch pretty much singled out Boston and New York as target markets.  If you were from Chicago, why would you go see that movie?

The full article can reached here. It’s incredibly insightful and a great piece on depicting the international economics of Hollywood. I know this is off topic but The Other Guys looks hilarious. Wahlberg and Ferrell will hopefully have great on screen chemistry.

What do you think? Are you excited to see The Other Guys?