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The promise is great: the blockbuster and the
Hollywood economy
Marco Cucco
UNIVERSITY OF LUGANO, SWITZERLAND
The blockbuster is the audiovisual product which best represents today’s
Hollywood. It is not easy to trace a clear outline of the blockbuster, as it
embraces a wide variety of genres and does not have particular features that
bind its classification (Stringer, 2003). All we can do is identify some main features that are clearly present in this kind of production, by looking at its origins.
The word ‘blockbuster’ has a military origin and was used to indicate the
large-scale bombs used during the Second World War. Later, during the
1950s, the word came into use in the cinematographic field to refer to a product whose distinguishing characteristic was its size. In this case size has two
meanings: on one hand it refers to a major economic investment and on the
other it refers to the amount of the takings.1 This means that the main features
of this new kind of film, born after the Second World War, are high production costs and good returns. Everything revolves around the idea that a big
production gives a better performance at the box office.
The studios’ decision to focus on big productions was based on many factors originating in the period between the end of the 1940s and the beginning
of the 1950s, when Hollywood was experiencing its worst crisis. The causes
of this crisis were migration towards the suburbs where there were no theatres; the baby boom, which reduced cinematographic consumption; the tendency to invest in durables (houses, cars, electrical appliances); the cinema’s
bad reputation because of the scandals in which some actors were involved
and McCarthyism; and the birth of new competing media (the advent of television) and other activities such as sports, gardening, etc.
To tackle this crisis the cinema industry reduced the number of films produced and focused on big and expensive productions. After all, the famous
Media, Culture & Society © 2009 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New
Delhi and Singapore), Vol. 31(2): 215–230
[ISSN: 0163-4437 DOI: 10.1177/0163443708100315]
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Paramount sentence had broken the vertical integration of the majors in
1948 and allayed the studios’ worry about having to supply theatres with a
good number of films (Neale, 2003). The studios, no longer owning the cinema circuits, were free to focus on a few projects in which they could invest
the money saved by reducing the volume of production. Big productions
requiring the use of the most advanced technology helped differentiate the
product from the supply of competing media such as television and helped
revive the theatre as a privileged place for the film experience and, more
generally, high-quality entertainment. From then on, a large number of
spectacular, mainly epic-historical productions were produced such as The
Ten Commandments, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Ben-Hur, Lawrence of
Arabia, Cleopatra. However, the blockbuster, as we see it today, has more
recent origins, in the mid-1970s. The investment is just as high as in the past
but what is different now is the promotional process, the choice of genre,
the narrative component and the place of consumption. The film that represented the turning point in this sense was Jaws by Steven Spielberg,
released in 1975. Universal boss Lew Wassermann was the man behind this
operation. He is considered the father of the blockbuster genre and of a new
type of collaboration between television and cinema. To promote Jaws, a
two-pronged saturation strategy was used: television advertisements and the
presence of the film in the theatres. For the first time television was used
massively to promote a movie (the film industry occupied most of the
advertising space during prime-time) and for the first time a movie was
released in a large number of theatres on the opening weekend (464 theatres, a record for that period), setting in motion a strategy that is widely
used nowadays. As Douglas Gomery recalls: ‘Jaws was not the first film
sold by and through broadcast television, but its million-dollar success
proved that that strategy was the one that would redefine Hollywood
through saturation advertising’ (1998: 51).
Thomas Schatz underlines how the blockbuster syndrome became manifest in the mid-1970s ‘despite (and in some ways because of)’ the consolidation of some competing media and the advent of new distribution
networks such as pay-tv and home video (2003: 75). Nowadays we can
safely say that blockbusters, and the new economic politics of Hollywood
based on them in general, would not exist without television. Today, television is a fundamental marketing tool, but it is above all thanks to revenues
from secondary markets (pay-tv, home video, broadcasting) that the film
industry can afford to make expensive movies and be sure of a return on
their investment, even in the case of flops.
The advent of television turned the home into the new entertainment centre, changing the forms and places of film consumption (Gomery, 1992).
However, it was only with the advent of television that Hollywood films
became widespread and theatres began to play a strategic and leading role in
the economy of that sector.
Cucco, The promise is great
217
The blockbuster
The first distinctive feature of the blockbuster is the high economic investment involved. According to MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America)
data, the average cost of a movie produced by a major in 2006 was around US
$100.3 million: $65.8 million were negative costs and $34.5 million marketing costs. These numbers refer to the costs of a studio’s yearly slate, which on
average comprises 10 to 20 films. A blockbuster’s costs are much higher, and
can sometimes be enormous. Moreover, in this case marketing costs and negative costs are often the same, moving the break-even point and the mark-up.
Negative costs may even be higher than marketing ones as was the case with
Alien (1979), the first one in cinema history. There are two reasons for such
high costs: technology and human resources. Blockbusters make use of
expensive special effects, using advanced technology, with the aim of distinguishing their product from the competition of other films or media. The
choice of genre is conditioned by the decision to focus on the use of special
effects. Indeed, the bigger the screen on which they are shown, the better they
are. Special effects, in fact, yield their performance better if screened on a big
screen, underlining the difference between the enjoyment of the movie at the
theatre or at home on the television. Consequently, since special effects
redeem theatres and cinematographic consumption, projects which involve a
greater use of them should be preferred, and these include science fiction
films, action and adventure movies. These kinds of films are appreciated most
by young people who, since the early 1950s, have been the cinema’s main
customers and are the most willing to move outside the home to find entertainment (Marich, 2005). Furthermore, science fiction and action movies
have the advantage of a lower cultural discount on foreign markets, where it
is easier for them to enter. In contrast, it’s harder to conquer new markets for
those films which focus less on kinematics and more on words, like dramas
and comedies, whose irony is often based on local culture (dialects, usages
and customs, etc.). So the blockbuster was born as a transnational product
(Stringer, 2003), meaning that it is designed for commercial utilization on the
global market. This approach leads to a loss of cultural specificity. As a journalist of The Economist wrote: ‘There is nothing particularly American about
boats crashing into icebergs or asteroids that threaten to obliterate human life’
(cited in Grant and Wood, 2004: 147).
Since the mid-1970s the production of some genres has gradually been
reduced. Musicals, westerns, biblical films, war films, films taken from literature and costume dramas have gone out of fashion, with some exceptions
(Chicago, Unforgiven, Saving Private Ryan, Pride and Prejudice) while the
production of other films (comedies, thrillers, dramatic films) has continued,
remaining in a middling place as regards production costs. Science fiction
films (Star Wars) and adventure films (Jaws) initiated, and then dominated,
the entire production of blockbusters.
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The second reason for such high production costs are human resources’
salaries, especially for the creative staff. These costs do not diminish gradually, but on the contrary rise more than the other costs of a cinematographic
production, whereas the cost of technological resources, initially high, drops
in the short term once the technology has been perfected and a production
system based on economies of scale is achieved. Human resources are difficult to find and highly sought-after, especially those able to pull the public to
the box office because of their image and reputation. Indeed, authors, directors and screenwriters of blockbusters base their decisions on the ability to
pack in the public, rather than on artistic considerations.
In everyday usage the word ‘blockbuster’ is usually used in a derogatory
way, referring to a worthless film that restates something that has already
been seen. That is not completely off the mark, even though there is the risk
of underestimating the strategic complexity of the production and distribution
of these movies. First of all, blockbusters are born from US popular culture
and their target is the mass public, with few artistic-expressive expectations.
They are films which appeal to feelings and primary emotions, with characters and situations able to enthrall emotionally, whose stories give universal
messages. The narrative construction is usually simple, not highly innovative
or revolutionary in content and apolitical.
The second important characteristic of the blockbuster, besides its size, is
the promise of spectacularity (King, 2003; Stringer, 2003) – the promise of
showing something astonishing – that makes them ‘must-see’ films (as they
are often defined). They are films which try to surpass the previous one, to
offer a new visual experience with more and more spacecraft, fighting soldiers, cities in ruins (wow factor). The use of special effects tries to push forward the visible, displayable and imaginable boundary, and the trailer of the
film tries to enter into an agreement with the members of the public, asking
them to watch the film to see to what extent the film-makers have dared to
push their ability. It’s a promise of novelty dictated by conservatism, where
novelty means the use of technology because there is no advancement in the
themes, content and style. While films once used to win prestigious awards,
such as Academy Awards (The Bridge on the River Kwai, Ben-Hur, Lawrence
of Arabia), for their high quality in all aspects, the blockbuster’s quality now
seems to be confined to its technical merits.
This lack of innovation is due to economic considerations which are also
the reasons for the creation and continual production of these films. As mentioned above, a blockbuster is not thought of as an artistic product but as a
commercial one, meant to produce money and cover the expenses of those
films that have not reached the break-even point as well as those projects that
have been stopped during their development, pre-production or filming, thus
producing no income but only costs.2
This phenomenon is known as the ‘best-sellers’ market’ (Doyle, 2002), and
these films are called ‘tent poles’ (King, 2002) because, thanks to their takings,
Cucco, The promise is great
219
they are able to support the economy of an entire studio. It is reckoned that
only two out of ten movies can generate earnings at the end of their life-cycle
in the theatres. However, considering also minor and ancillary markets, this
number rises to five out of ten (Maltby, 1998). This confirms Vogel’s theory:
nowadays the cinema industry has to be able to sustain expenses that will only
be recovered in the long run and this favours the strongest companies on the
market (Vogel, 1998). Additionally, a blockbuster is a product of primary
importance for the conglomerate to which the production company is related.
It can also generate a merchandising business (books, TV programmes, gadgets, etc.) for the branches of the group. The economic importance of a blockbuster for its company means that the uncertainty of the film on the market has
to be minimized.
To avoid risks at the box office, the blockbuster has to appear to the public
with a simple, immediate, easily recognizable identity. The idea of ‘high concept’ presented by Justin Wyatt in his famous book, High Concept: Movies
and Marketing in Hollywood (1994), is closely connected to this point. The
expression ‘high concept’ appeared in the 1970s in the television sector to talk
about stories that had to be summed up in a 30-second advertisement. Later,
it was used with a very similar meaning by the film industry. According to
Wyatt, a high-concept film is a film that can be summarized in just one sentence or image, making its marketing easier.
‘High concept’ can be considered a cinematographic style that appeared in
Hollywood after the Second World War, showing considerable transformations in the classic pattern of films as a result of economic and institutional
changes (the advent and success of television in its different forms; the conglomerates; the changes in marketing and distribution strategies). This style
marked a turning point between 1950s blockbusters and modern ones, starting with the release of Jaws.
The identity of a high-concept movie is simple and easily communicable
since it is designed around the public’s taste and market research. Its fundamental features are the simplification of characters and narration, and a close
relationship between image and sound. As already explained, blockbusters
usually give more importance to special effects than to narration because the
former can intensify the spectacularity.
The additional element introduced with the high-concept theory is the importance of the image, not only as a spectacular attraction but also as the summary
of the film. For instance, Tom Cruise on the motorbike or wearing the American
Air Force uniform in Top Gun, or the playbill of Jaws which allows filmgoers
to anticipate the fear, the contrast between man and nature, the battle between
good and bad. The same is true for the poster of Independence Day, where a
spacecraft hangs over an American city and gives us the idea of an alien threat
(or of another, more general one), of freedom (the title is important in high
concept as well), of the unknown. If there is music too, then that also becomes
an instrument of identification and enhances the film’s appeal, making it work
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better. There are many examples of this: Indiana Jones, Armageddon and
Titanic. All these characteristics of a high-concept film show how the new cinematographic style that appeared in the mid-1970s is mainly focused on the
market and on easy penetration of both domestic and overseas markets. Even
though the identity of these films is simple and direct, this does not cancel out
the promise of spectacularity, and indeed helps to reduce the uncertainty of the
opening weekend.
There is one other frequent element that plays a role in this: the tendency to
produce sequels, prequels and remakes, and to take the subject from known
products, like novels, comics, TV series or plays. In this case we talk about
‘pre-sold identity’ as the subjects are stories or characters that the public already
know and are thus sure to guarantee a certain success for the film. While until
a few years ago it was reckoned that the second instalment took between 50 percent and 70 percent the takings of the original, and the third around 40 percent,
with only a few films bucking this trend (The Godfather Part II, Terminator II),
the numbers registered at the beginning of 2000 seem to reverse these statistics.
The sequels of Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Shrek, Spider-Man and The
Pirates of Caribbean are proving that serialization can generate increasing
earnings, and can create loyalty-building processes that reassure producers and
distributors about a film’s success. These are the best films to advertise, to
increase revenues over a few weeks, and in general to reduce the risks for the
studio that spent so much money on them. And, though their economic impact
is longer-lasting, stars can be considered a high-concept or pre-sold identity as
well; in fact, some names are automatically associated with certain genres.
A final economic feature of a blockbuster lies in its ability to supplement
the earnings from its audiovisual receipts with receipts from merchandising.
These revenues, which can start even before the film is released, are able to
enhance the value of a movie that performs badly at the box office, or simply
enhance its success.
The studio usually has the right to a commission of between 3 percent and
20 percent (Marich, 2005) of the sales. Obviously, not all movies are suitable
for merchandising (like war films) and not all successful films can transmit
their appeal to secondary markets. Furthermore, it is hard to calculate revenues both because of the numerous forms of merchandising (toys,
videogames, clothes, fancy goods …) and because of a general unwillingness
on the part of the majors to provide data about extra revenues.
In the light of the above, it is clear that a blockbuster is a commercial product, targeted at an international market. Media products are characterized by
two properties (artistic-cultural and economic), normally in a dialectical and
ambiguous relationship, but in the case of a blockbuster the latter is more
important. However, the prioritizing of the economic aspect does not diminish the importance and complexity of the blockbuster. As the high-concept
theory demonstrates, behind a simple idea communicated by a blockbuster,
there is a complex marketing strategy aimed at simplifying the message and
Cucco, The promise is great
221
its communication. The second part of this article looks into the blockbuster’s
distribution strategy over recent decades: the simultaneous release of a film in
a large number of theatres on the opening weekend. This strategy is one of the
instruments created to reduce the level of uncertainty for the opening. In addition, we can mention the choice of the release date, the cinematographic
transposition of successful novels/TV series/plays, participation in (or
absence from) festivals, etc. The choice of focusing on the theatre saturation
release strategy is because all the elements that are able to influence the economic performance of a film converge in it, and because use of this strategy,
and its transformation into common practice, represented a revolution in the
three stages of the film industry’s value chain.
The saturation booking strategy
From the origins of the film industry, the classical distribution strategy followed a hierarchical structure: first, the film came out in the most important
theatres in the main towns, then in the secondary ones (where the tickets were
cheaper), moving progressively from the biggest towns to country and suburban areas. This process could last up to a whole year. All this has been
changed by the introduction of new distribution channels and blockbusters:
the first showing increased in importance and running time, whereas the following cycles have been absorbed or eliminated by it.
The typical strategy used with a blockbuster is the saturation booking strategy: to screen a film in the largest number of cinemas during the opening
weekend. The reasons are many and are rooted in recent cinema history, especially in 1975 when Jaws taught the film industry three lessons: (a) the central
role of advertising in order to guarantee the success of the film; (b) television’s
capacity to advertise a film to viewers and make them want to see it; (c) the
importance of the opening weekend, considered to be the most critical moment
in the life-cycle of a product. As the producer Robert Evans put it, a film ‘is
like a parachute jump; if it doesn’t open, you are dead’ (in De Vany, 2004: 48).
The strategic role of the opening weekend
The maximization of revenues and of the number of opening weekend theatres
is a trend that is changing the economy of the cinema. Figures on this are striking. The 65 best box office films on the opening weekend3 shows a predominance of films produced since 2000: 59 compared to 6 from the 1990s (The
Lost World: Jurassic Park, is the first of these, holding 24th position).
The list of films with the widest release on the opening weekend confirms
what has already been said.4 In this case, the conclusions are even more
extreme. The first 137 movies on the list were produced after 2000. The first
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FIGURE 1
Widest release on the opening weekend per year (1980–2007)
Pirates of Caribbean 3
Shrek 2
Madagascar
Pirates of the Caribbean
X-Men 2
Shrek
Spider-Man
Mission: Impossible II
Godzilla
The Mummy
The Lost World : Jurassic…
Batman Forever
Mission: Impossible
Star Trek: Generations
Batman Returns
The Addams Family
Another 48Hrs
Teenage Mutant Ninja…
Ghostbusters II
Mr Crocodile Dundee II
Cobra
Beverly Hills Cop II
Rocky IV
Beverly Hills Cop
ET
Superman III
Superman II
The Empire Strikes Back
5000
4500
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07
Source: Author’s processing of Box Office Mojo data
movie from the previous decade is Wild Wild West (138th). Moreover, four out
of the first ten films were distributed in 2007 (Pirates of the Caribbean: At
World’s End, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Spider-Man 3, Shrek
the Third), in first, second, third and eighth place.
Considering the widest released movies every year between 1980 and
2007, it is clear that the number of screens on the opening weekend has more
than tripled, increasing from 1268 (The Empire Strikes Back) to 4362 (Pirates
of Caribbean: At World’s End) (see Figure 1).
The majors focus their efforts and economy on the opening weekend for
many interconnected reasons. A detailed analysis of each reason is given below.
To concentrate advertising costs and optimize effects
The use of television to promote films has caused a rise in marketing costs,
making it impossible for a film to take a year to reach every cinema (first, second and third run) throughout the country as it used to. In the case of a blockbuster, 80 percent of the advertising investment is spent in the week before the
release of the film in the theatres (Vogel, 1998). Moreover, films are screened
in the largest number of theatres during the first weeks. In this way the
demand and curiosity created by the advertising campaign are satisfied in the
shortest possible time and when they are at their height.
Cucco, The promise is great
223
Young people above all are influenced by advertising and are also the
blockbuster’s preferred target. In fact, if they are interested in a film they are
likely to go and see it immediately while adults usually wait for some weeks
and go to the cinema only after reading or hearing good reviews. In any case,
demand is at its height during the opening weekend so the distributor has to
guarantee a vast coverage of the domestic market in order to let the film reach
every filmgoer before interest in the film wanes.
Analysis of the revenue of films that took in most during the opening weekend clearly shows that after the first week the revenue curve starts to dip, usually dropping by 40 percent compared to the first week.
Analysis of the costs of the majors affiliated with the MPAA between 1985
and 2005 shows that marketing costs have increased more than production
costs (+104.5 percent compared to +64.8 percent; see Table 2). This demonstrates that the new distribution strategies increased the concentration of
advertising in that period but did not reduce it in terms of quantity.
To avoid a qualitative debate
The movie is considered an experiential commodity: it is impossible to know
its quality and benefit before its consumption. This characteristic makes viewers careful: they wait for their friends’ opinions or for a qualitative index
(reviews, awards, receipts) before deciding whether to go to the theatre or not.
The expectation of quality can be a risk as far as revenues are concerned, especially when speaking about blockbusters. This is why these films have been
widely released on the opening weekend for almost 30 years now. By showing
the film in many theatres at the same time, the number of people who watch a
movie without reading reviews or hearing opinions beforehand increases. As
De Vany put it, these movies depend on the so-called ‘uninformative information cascade’. Moreover, they are usually defined hit and run as they earn a lot
of money when they come out in theatres but disappear from programming in
a few weeks. According to De Vany (2004), this distribution strategy makes
spectators go to watch a movie because they are influenced by advertisements
or because they want to emulate other people’s behaviour. There is no exchange
of information on the product’s quality because neither the critics nor the spectators have seen the movie beforehand. The effect does not last long. The cascade becomes informative when people start to talk about the movie; that is
when word-of-mouth begins. And the takings may also fall (De Vany, 2004).
Blockbusters rely on this strategy for two reasons: their budget is so high
that they cannot risk word-of-mouth advertising. Second, they are the movies
that are least loved by the critics, and those most likely to be attacked on the
grounds of their quality. So it is a distributor’s business to anticipate negative
opinions as to the quality of the movie and to encourage emulative behaviour
where box-office data turn into an important index of movies that are worth
77,073,388
$130
$150
$125
$100
$200
$110
$30
$115
***
$150
$125
UK/USA
USA
UK/USA
UK/USA/D
USA
USA
USA
USA
USA
UK/USA
Source: Author’s processing of Box Office Mojo data
USA
88,156,227
85,558,731
83,848,082
80,027,814
77,211,321
77,108,414
$258
$225
$160
$139
$300
$113
$70
$210
$150
USA
USA
USA
USA
USA
USA
USA
USA
UK/USA
Spider-Man 3
Pirates of Caribbean 2
Shrek the Third
Spider-Man
Pirates of Caribbean 3
Star Wars: Episode III
Shrek 2
X-Men: The Last Stand
Harry Potter and the
Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the
Prisoner of Azkaban
The Matrix Reloaded
Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer’s Stone
Harry Potter and the
Chamber of Secrets
Spider-Man 2
X2: X-Men United
The Passion of the Christ
Star Wars: Episode II
I Am Legend
Harry Potter and the
Order of the Phoenix
The Da Vinci Code
88,357,488
91,774,413
90,294,621
93,687,367
151,116,516
135,634,554
121,629,270
114,844,116
114,732,820
108,435,841
108,037,878
102,750,665
102,685,961
Negative costs
Nation
Title
Box office
in the opening
weekend
35.4%
23.6%
39.8%
22.6%
26.5%
***
26.4%
33.7%
32.6%
28.4%
37.5%
44.9%
32.0%
37.7%
28.4%
37.1%
28.5%
24.5%
43.8%
35.4%
% total box
office in the
opening weekend
TABLE 1
Biggest all-time box office on the opening weekend (US$ millions)
13
22
21
22
24
***
22
24
26
/
25
16
22
12
15
19
22
21
18
20
Weeks in
movie theatres
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Cucco, The promise is great
225
seeing. In this way quality becomes irrelevant (Lewis, 2003) and is no longer
an economic threat.
While reviews are not a particularly serious threat, because some studies have
demonstrated that their effects on revenues are fairly limited (Eliashberg and
Shugan, 1997) and that they are directed at adults who are not the blockbuster’s
main target, word-of-mouth is a different matter. The danger of this lies in its
unpredictability and ungovernability. These are elements which contrast with
Hollywood politics, devoted to minimizing factors of uncertainty that may jeopardize the performance of a movie. In the last ten years the relationship between
majors and word-of-mouth has become increasingly complicated because of the
diffusion of forums, blogs and chat-rooms. This trend has increased the free
exchange of opinions that inevitably touches the cinematographic sector. Just a
short time (even only a few hours) after a film is screened, comments and
reviews are available on the internet. This lets the distributor know the viewers’
first reactions, and he can consequently modify the communication campaign, if
necessary. However, he can also decide to join the argument, to turn it around
and pull potential movie-goers to the cinema. For instance, The Da Vinci Code
devised a clever policy to accentuate (and limit) the debate surrounding the film.
Sony’s marketing office called in theology experts for an online debate on the
book and film. It was allegedly a website for the free exchange of thoughts about
the film but in actual fact it was run by Sony’s marketing office.
To maximize the cost of transfer rights
Movie theatres have always played a central role in the cinema’s economy
and their importance has grown with the advent of television and related secondary markets. Their irreplaceable function continues despite some difficulties: the fact that home video receipts surpassed box-office revenues starting
in the mid-1980s (Wasser, 2008); and the growing phenomenon of online
piracy, able to anticipate films, which has made some experts sceptical that
traditional distribution of films will continue to exist in the future. Moreover,
the selling price to the secondary distribution channels depends on box-office
receipts in the first weeks. The bigger the success of the first night, the higher
the price in secondary markets. Movies that manage to maximize their presence at the beginning of the life-cycle, like the ones released with the saturation booking strategy, will command the highest prices.
The same price mechanism is sometimes used in the transfer of cinematographic rights to foreign markets.
To maximize the star and pre-sold identity effect
Often the most expensive budget item in a production is a famous star in the
cast. Some recent data (Hollywood Reporter, November 2006) revealed the
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highest fees paid to actors: the male record is held by Jim Carrey with $25
million while Nicole Kidman holds the female record with $17 million. The
figures are very high, especially if compared to the average production costs
of a major film ($65.8 million in 2006). Creative resources have always been
the most expensive. In fact, they can add something extra that gives artistic
value to the movie. However, from an economic point of view, the star has
two fundamental functions: to guarantee the movie access to the market and
guarantee that the public will be attracted to the cinema. This is possible
because stars have turned into brand products (Bakker, 2005), able to take
advantage of their fame with the public. Still, the star component has a big
limit: its power to attract ends after the opening weekend.
After the first screening, when the qualitative characteristics of the movie are
uncovered, the economic performance of the film in theatres and secondary
markets becomes more precarious, laying the future life-cycle of the film on the
line. In order to avoid such a risk, distributors have chosen to concentrate consumption on the opening weekend, maximizing the star-effect at the box office.
The pre-sold identity effect can attract viewers to the theatres as well. The
pre-sold identity concept is extremely wide-ranging so we will only consider
the phenomena of sequel, prequel and remake. Of the 65 movies that earned
most on the opening weekend, there are 29 sequels, 3 prequels and 3 remakes,
for a total of 35 titles. Also considering the movies that have had the widest
release each year since 1980 (Figure 1) sequels, prequels or remakes are
numerous (19 out of 26 movies) and represent the key moments in the growth
of the wide-release approach. There are many advantages to producing presold identity movies. First of all, they are not completely new products as
there has been a precedent that has made some characters familiar to the public. When the decision to produce such a film is taken, it means that the first
instalment was a success and it is likely to be seen by a part of the same public. From a point of view of production costs, the screenplay costs of sequels
can be reduced by 25 percent (Perretti and Negro, 2003) because settings,
costumes and equipment can be salvaged from the previous instalments. One
budget item that could increase is actors’ fees, because they can ask for a rise
or a percentage of the takings due to the success of the earlier films or their
own irreplaceability on the set.
To reduce the danger of competition
In such a precarious system, where only a few movies support the economy
of an entire studio, it is unthinkable that the most important movies of the season’s production should come out on the same day as a competitor’s major
movie. Sharing the audience would damage both studios. This is why distribution majors have always reached an agreement on the release of their most
important movies. It is a matter of agreement between sister companies that
Cucco, The promise is great
227
TABLE 2
Negative and marketing costs 1985–2005 (US$ millions)
1985 1995 Variation 2005 Variation Variation 1985–2005
Negative costs $16.8 $36.4
Marketing costs $6.5 $17.7
116.6%
172.3%
$60
$36.2
64.8%
104.5%
275.1%
456.9%
Source: Author’s processing of MPAA data
has the advantage of consolidating the oligopoly within the sector and of raising barriers for possible competitors who cannot afford the advertising costs
and the costs for copies needed to launch the movie on a wide scale. These
costs are only within the reach of a major. So, during its opening weekend,
the major movie is the subject of public and media attention and it does not
have to share this attention with others. However, this attention will fall off
the next weekend, moving to other productions. In fact, it is important to
know that the favourite period for the release of blockbusters starts on
Memorial Day weekend (28 May) and ends on Labor Day (the first Monday
of September). In other words, blockbusters tend to come out in summer
when the networks’ competition is weaker, people are more willing to go out
and youngsters have more spare time. However, this period has to be shared
with competitors so it is reckoned that a blockbuster usually only has two
weekends to maximize its income; also because in August people are more
likely to go on holiday somewhere. Opening at the beginning of summer is
also functional in relation to film sales on the DVD market: as a matter of fact,
if a movie comes out around June–July, it will be available in shops for
Christmas when DVD sales are at their peak.
To exploit the potential of multiplex cinemas
The life-cycle of a movie has been shortened by the wide opening weekend
release pattern and by the concentration of advertising in the weeks immediately before the first screening. In fact, now a movie takes six to eight weeks
to spread all over the country, while before it used to take almost a year.
Considering again the list of movies that earned most during their opening
weekend, their average run in movie theatres is 20 weeks (see Table 1).
These data confirm the logic of the windowing system: in the United States
a movie is available on the home video market six months after it opens in the
theatres. The explanation for this phenomenon is the development of multiplex
cinemas that allow perfect management of the movie during its life-cycle.
When a film begins to lose viewers, it can be progressively moved to smaller
theatres, keeping the movie in the portfolio and rationalizing the use of the
spaces in relation to demand. It is difficult to establish whether this strategy is
a cause or a consequence of the choice of concentrating takings on the first
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Media, Culture & Society 31(2)
weekend; however, multiplex cinemas appeared before the development of this
distribution strategy. Consequently, it is possible that distributors have found
in these new cinemas a tool suited to their purpose.
To maximize distributors’ receipts
Distributors and exhibitors share the takings according to percentages that
change over the weeks. During the first two weeks of screening, the percentage due to the distributor is usually 90 percent but falls to 70 percent and to
lower percentages over the following weeks. So the concentration of revenue
on the first weekend brings a higher remuneration for the distributor.
Conclusions
For the last 30 years, the blockbuster has been denoted by measures that simplify its communication and marketing. Moreover, the blockbuster manages
to propose a kind of film where the promise of novelty and greatness lies in
the use of advanced technology able to offer exciting special effects; in this
way the risks linked to original and against-the-mainstream choices, and to
pioneering decisions, have been avoided. It is a simple and clear promise
which is always kept. Proof of this is the high receipts of each new blockbuster on secondary markets. However, release processes are extremely complex and are aimed at minimizing the uncertainty of the first night of
screening. During this study we discovered that maximization of the theatres
on the opening weekend is the best tool to reach this goal, as it allows: (a)
concentration of advertising costs and maximization of effects; (b) avoidance
of a debate over quality; (c) maximization of transfer rights costs; (d) maximization of the star-effect and pre-sold identity; (e) reduction of the danger of
competition; (f) use of the potential of multiplex cinemas; (g) maximization
of distributors’ revenues.
This strategy, which has now become common practice, has introduced
radical changes into the three stages of the film industry’s chain of value. In
production, movies based on known stories and characters (with a pre-sold
identity) have increased. In distribution, the opening weekend has become the
central moment of the life-cycle: the movie theatre is crucial to test people’s
reactions and establish the commercial value of the film in terms of economic
performance and transfer of rights. Finally, the practice is characterized by
publicity that invades the cinemas at the beginning and then disappears in a
few weeks, leaving space for new big productions of competitors. The shortening of the life-cycle of blockbusters in the theatres and the diffusion of multiplexes guarantee exhibitors a wide slate. Still, this tendency to maximize the
audience on the opening weekend hinders exhibitors as regards contracts, but
Cucco, The promise is great
229
favours the distributor, who is the leading player in the film industry, both
strategically and economically.
Notes
1. The word ‘blockbuster’ is often used also in the presence of just one of these two
characteristics: very expensive but unsuccessful movies, or cheaper but successful
ones. Given that in the latter case a movie can be defined as a blockbuster only after
having seen the takings, in this study the word ‘blockbuster’ will be used only in the
presence of the two features together (high costs and revenues), or only the former one
(total investments) because, without considering market performance, the producer’s
intention to make a blockbuster holds steady.
2. It is estimated that each year a major production company receives about 10,000
proposals of subjects, novels and screenplays to be made into films. But only between
70 and 100 of them enter the development phase and only 12 or 15 will turn into
movies. The revenues from these films will also contribute to recovering the development costs of projects that have been interrupted (Dale, 1997).
3. List taken from www.boxofficemojo.com (consulted April 2008).
4. List taken from www.boxofficemojo.com (consulted April 2008).
References
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pp. 48–85 in J. Sedgwick and M. Pokorny (eds) An Economic History of Film.
London: Routledge.
Dale, M. (1997) The Movie Game: The Film Business in Britain, Europe and
America. London: British Library.
De Vany, A. (2004) Hollywood Economics: How Extreme Uncertainty Shapes the
Film Industry. London: Routledge.
Doyle, G. (2002) Understanding Media Economics. London: SAGE.
Eliashberg, J. and S.M. Shugan (1997) ‘Film Critics: Influencers or Predictors?’,
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States. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Gomery, D. (1998) ‘Hollywood Corporate Business Practice and Periodizing
Contemporary Film History’, pp. 47–57 in S. Neale and M. Smith (eds)
Contemporary Hollywood Cinema. London: Routledge.
Grant, P.S. and C. Wood (2004) Blockbusters and Trade Wars: Popular Culture in a
Globalized World. Vancouver: Douglas and McInytre.
King, G. (2002) New Hollywood Cinema: An Introduction. London: I.B. Tauris.
King, J. (2003) ‘Spectacle, Narrative, and Spectacular Hollywood Blockbuster’,
pp. 114–27 in J. Stringer (ed.) Movie Blockbuster. London: Routledge.
Lewis, J. (2003) ‘Following the Money in America’s Sunniest Company Town: Some
Notes on the Political Economy of the Hollywood Blockbuster’, pp. 61–71 in
J. Stringer (eds) Movie Blockbuster. London: Routledge.
Maltby, R. (1998) ‘Nobody Knows Everything: Post-classical Historiographies and
Consolidated Entertainment’, pp. 21–44 in S. Neale and M. Smith (eds)
Contemporary Hollywood Cinema. London: Routledge.
Marich, R. (2005) Marketing to Moviegoers: A Handbook of Strategies Used by
Major Studios and Independents. Burlingtom: Focal Press.
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Neale, S. (2003) ‘Hollywood Blockbusters: Historical Dimension’, pp. 47–60 in
J. Stringer (eds) Movie Blockbuster. London: Routledge.
Perretti, F. and G. Negro (2003) Economia del cinema. Milan: Etas.
Schatz, T. (2003) ‘The New Hollywood’, pp. 15–44 in J. Stringer (ed.) Movie
Blockbuster. London: Routledge.
Stringer, J. (2003) ‘Introduction’, pp. 1–14 in J. Stringer (ed.) Movie Blockbuster.
London: Routledge.
Vogel, H.L. (1998) Entertainment Industry Economics: A Guide for Financial
Analysis, 4th edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wasser, F. (2008) ‘Ancillary Markets – Video and DVD: Hollywood Retools’,
pp. 120–31 in P. McDonald and J. Wasko (eds) The Contemporary Hollywood Film
Industry. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wyatt, J. (1994) High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood. Austin, TX:
University of Texas Press.
Marco Cucco is completing a PhD thesis on the political economy of cinema
at the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the University of Lugano, where
he works as a teaching assistant. He also coordinates a Masters in Media
Management. Address: Faculty of Communication Sciences, University of
Lugano, Via Giuseppe Buffi 13, 6904 Lugano, Switzerland. [email:
marco.cucco@lu.unisi.ch]
CIJ 3 (3) pp. 221–235 Intellect Limited 2010
Creative Industries Journal
Volume 3 Number 3
© 2010 Intellect Ltd Major Papers. English language. doi: 10.1386/cij.3.3.221_1
RAYNA DENISON
University of East Anglia
Transcultural creativity in
anime: Hybrid identities in
the production, distribution,
texts and fandom of Japanese
anime
ABSTRACT
KEYWORDS
This article seeks to examine some of the overlooked transcultural aspects and elements
of creativity in anime. Through a series of contemporary case studies, it is argued that
anime supports an array of transcultural creative practices that span across borders,
hybridize content and even force the creation of new types of text and distribution. The
attention to the transcultural here is an attempt to move beyond discussions of how
Japanese anime are, and to open up a space in which to discuss their relevance beyond
their home nation. In these ways, the creative work undertaken by those within and
beyond the industries related to anime is demonstrating the global reach of Japanese
cultural products.
anime
transcultural
creative work
piracy
Emma: A Victorian
Romance
Afro Samurai
Creativity, in relation to media texts, takes on multiple potential forms when
considered through a transcultural lens. It can refer to the original makers
of media products writing, filming or, indeed, animating products in ways
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Rayna Denison
that deny the centrality of their originating cultures. These hybrid-identified
products can then be sold across cultures, and can be made sense of in
terms of translinguistic and transnational regional promotions and sales,
creating what Charles Acland calls ‘mutating commodities’ (2003: 23).
Additionally, transcultural creativity can take place after those originating
moments, in the times and spaces between ‘legitimate’ cultural flows, as
when groups of fans take up the mantle of creative re-producer, in order to
fill gaps in transnational media flows (see Lee 2011, in this issue). Creativity
in this sense, then, is not just about making media products, but about their
continual recreation as they travel around the world. Therefore, this article
is concerned with examining how Japan’s creative industries act as, and
interact with, global ‘re-producers’ of their texts, from the overseas firms
distributing anime, to the fan groups who turn re-producers of anime. The
methods employed here are qualitative, and based in the analysis of a range
of discourses produced by the creative industries involved with anime, and
their fans. Through these means, this article challenges essentialist notions of
anime as either intrinsically ‘Japanese’ or intrinsically ‘mukokuseki’ (stateless),
seeking instead to look for the discursive moments in which anime cross
between cultures. In this study, moments of cultural and creative mediation
are therefore taken as focal points in order to open up a space in which to
debate the relative impact of transcultural creative practices on the anime
industries, and, consequently, to analyse how such transcultural practices
challenge the ways in which anime has been conceptualized.
Considerations of trans- phenomena litter contemporary academic work.
This article attempts to distinguish between cultural and national variations
on the trans- theme, because doing so enables greater understanding of the
difference between a media product from a particular (inter)national background, and the global or transnational cultures that become attached to it.
David MacDougall, in Transcultural Cinema, offers a useful definition in relation to ethnographic films, which he claims ‘have been widely understood as
transcultural, in the familiar sense of crossing cultural boundaries – indeed
the very term implies an awareness and mediation of the unfamiliar – but
they are also transcultural in another sense: that of defying such boundaries’
(1998: 245). The notion of cultural boundaries is a useful one to this study,
because it suggests that media may not just be produced for one domestic
market, but, rather, for diasporic audiences, for subcultures in other nations,
for regional cultures and for audiences who join in what Matt Hills, following Benedict Anderson (1983), has termed the ‘communities of imagination’
(2002: 180) that gather around media texts.
In this way then, anime becomes not just a set of texts emanating from
a Japanese cultural centre, but rather a culture of interconnected industries
and (prosumer-) consumers (Toffler 1980). This amorphous ‘culture’ of anime
can be considered in line with the cultural ‘contact zones’ outlined by Henry
Jenkins, wherein ‘unpredictable and contradictory meanings […] get ascribed
to […] images as they are decontextualised’ (2006: 154) during global circulation. Likewise, the creativity required to enhance cultural transferability
and to resituate those increasingly decontextualized images is the central
concern here. It is the resulting transculture(s) of anime that this article seeks
to unpack by examining some brief case studies that have emerged out of
research undertaken in Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States
between 2007 and the present. The case studies are grouped around industrial, textual and fan discourses and around the potentially transcultural anime
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Transcultural creativity in anime
(re)production that has taken place during this period. These groupings are
intended to cover a range of synchronic moments in different kinds of transcultural creativity, providing examples of how some anime texts are created
to be, or are re-made as, transcultural objects. The examples chosen are sometimes extreme, though instructive, cases, or are cases that exemplify a particular trend. Neither sort of example is intended to stand in for the entirety of
anime (re)production practices, but rather, it is hoped that their presentation
herein might suggest areas where further work on the transcultural nature of
anime might be undertaken.
GLOBAL ANIME?: MEDIA MARKETS, TRANSCULTURAL CREATIVITY
AND FLOW
Perhaps the most purposeful type of transcultural exchange in anime takes
place between the Japanese producers of these media texts and their American
industrial counterparts, who buy their products, translate them and then
distribute them to the English-speaking marketplace (now often globally,
thanks to Internet DVD sales). To focus on this kind of anime distribution
requires some sense of where and in what forms anime travels. In this respect,
anime distribution patterns are perhaps most easily understood in relation to
the hierarchy of markets through which they move. For anime, the domestic Japanese market remains the primary market, where the vast majority of
anime are still produced and distributed (JETRO 2005). Differentiating which
countries and geo-linguistic regions form secondary and tertiary markets is,
however, more problematic. Economic indicators such as distribution revenues provide only part of a larger picture of active fan cultures, not all of
which partake of legally distributed anime. Historically though, anime have
had an important cultural presence in mainland Europe, perhaps especially
in France and Italy (and through Italy to Spain), and there are also developed
markets for anime in Australia and New Zealand, as well as markets based
around diasporic Japanese populations in parts of South and North America.
However, historically, it has been companies based in the United States that
have nurtured links with the Japanese industry, and have worked to speed the
negotiation of rights to secondary market distribution of Japanese anime.
Distribution deals therefore offer a complex understanding of how, and to
what extent, anime is becoming a transcultural set of phenomena. An interesting case of discord can be found in the control exercised by the Japanese
producers over rights to merchandising. For example, the high-profile Disney–
Tokuma deal of 1996 (see http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/disney/) enabled
Studio Ghibli (through its then parent company Tokuma Shoten) to retain the
licensing rights to merchandise. This effectively created a vacuum in merchandising around Studio Ghibli’s films in the United States. Whereas in Japan,
there are several stores that specialize in Studio Ghibli merchandising in
Tokyo alone, and Ghibli merchandising can be found in most toy and department stores (specialist stores are, e.g., located in the Ghibli museum, at Tokyo
Station and in Asakusa next to one of Tokyo’s most famous tourist attractions),
this is not the case in the United States, where Ghibli merchandise has had to
be imported from Asia, rather than being produced directly through American
licensing deals. This case offers an intriguing contrast to the other major
Japanese success of the period: Pokémon (1996–). In the case of the Pokémon
franchise it would seem that parent company Nintendo’s American presence
enabled the franchise to capitalize on the potential profits to be reaped from
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Rayna Denison
1. English-language
titles will be used
throughout, except
to clarify between
Japanese and Englishlanguage versions of
texts, and Japanese
names are given in
English-language order,
i.e. forename, surname.
licensing and tie-ins (Iwabuchi 2004: 66–67). Comparatively then, the transcultural flow of Studio Ghibli’s extratextual and epiphenomenal networks beyond
Asia has been halting, and their transcultural presence has been purposely
limited by the Japanese creative producers.
Despite the control exercised by the Japanese creators, however, even the
high-profile anime of Studio Ghibli can be considered mutated commodities
in the United States. Translated and re-dubbed with star voice casts, Studio
Ghibli’s films have become enmeshed within new cultural systems of stardom, and even authorship (Denison 2008). The evidence suggests that this
process has been an experimental one, with different behind-the-scenes
authors working on different films, perhaps most famously John Lasseter, who
oversaw the reproduction of Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi into Spirited Away
(Hayao Miyazaki, 2001).1 The result in relation to voice-casting is telling in
that Disney began by using big star names [e.g. Kirsten Dunst in the title role
in Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)] until the relative failure of Princess Mononoke
(1997). This led to a system that appears to have normalized around the use
of star groupings ranged across demographics. For example, Ponyo (2008)
features stars who range in age, from Frankie Jonas and Noah Cyrus, both
then aged eight, and both younger siblings of stars from the Disney stable, to
Betty White and Cloris Leachman, both in their 80s at the time of production.
Moreover, these star groupings tend to range across film and television and
across demographics. For example, Tina Fey, who played Lisa (protagonist
Sosuke’s mother) in the American version of Ponyo, is probably most famous
for her writing and starring role in television show 30 Rock (2006–), whereas
co-stars Liam Neeson, Matt Damon and Cate Blanchett are probably better
known for their film roles. In their use of what I have discussed elsewhere as
‘star constellations’ (2008), Disney have begun to promote Studio Ghibli films
as prestige productions with transcultural appeal to the markets for American
film and television, as well as to the markets for animation and anime.
In making anime more American, the case of Disney and Ghibli highlights
how post-production creative work can alter the cultural appeal of anime
texts. This can also be seen in the work of American distribution companies in
translating and redubbing anime television shows for broadcasting and release
online and on DVD. However, the picture is bigger than this suggests, with
American and Japanese companies now beginning to work more closely with
one another to produce purposefully transcultural products., It would seem as
though the American market is still beyond the reach of Japanese producer–
distributors at times, given that their partnerships tend to end at core media
products, rather than extending to the merchandising and direct promotion so
important within the domestic Japanese market.
This has been so much the case that a recent boom in global anime distribution and fandom, which has its highest-profile examples in the late 1990s
distribution deals between Disney and Studio Ghibli and the successful distribution of the Pokémon television series (Denison 2006; Tobin 2004), has seen
American non-anime producers begin to involve themselves more actively
in anime production. High profile examples of the former can be found in the
anime inserts into films like Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and in straight-to-DVD
ancillary products such as Batman: Gotham Knight (2008) (which was animated
by some of Japan’s most famous studios including Madhouse Animation and
Studio 4°C). However, perhaps the best and most extreme example of recent
transcultural industrial convergence is one that inverts the distribution norms
of anime: Afro Samurai (2007, 2009).
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Born out of anime studio Gonzo’s desire to penetrate the American
marketplace, the concept of Afro Samurai was reportedly taken by one of their
American-born executives to American producers (Strike 2007). Subsequently,
cable channel ‘Spike TV’ picked up the option to produce the series, but only
after Samuel L. Jackson announced he would be involved as the voice of the
central character, and as an executive producer for the series. Transcultural
production in this instance at least has been reported to be a result of key
creative personnel coming together in Japan and America (Takashi Okazaki,
the creator, and Jackson, the performer). Afro Samurai first aired on ‘Spike TV’
in America, and also on their website, taking ten months to filter through to
Japanese distribution on ‘Fuji Television’ in October 2007, thereby inverting
the usual distribution pattern for anime that begins in Japan and usually takes
considerable time to reach secondary markets outside Asia (Strike 2007; for
more co-productions, see Clayton and Ciolek 2008). While international creative convergence is not unusual in animation production, with Japanese and
South Korean firms regularly doing ‘in-betweening’ work on American animation, the flow in the opposite direction is less well mapped. Afro Samurai’s
distinctiveness, therefore, can be seen in the circularity of creative flows that
went from Japan to America and back again.
High profile examples of this kind of transcultural, or at least inter-cultural,
creative planning are becoming increasingly common. Two trends are becoming visible within creative intercultural planning: first, moves by American
companies to hire Japanese creative talent and to reproduce Japanese
aesthetic styles; and in examples where creative work from Japan is bought-in
by American entertainment businesses.
Where Afro Samurai might offer an example of the latter, the former can
be found, for example, in the Japanese arm of Disney television (Walt Disney
Television International Japan) entering into a co-production deal with the
high-profile Toei Animation studio in order to produce new CGI-led content.
These new anime-inflected shows by Toei are now being shown as a ‘local’
product on Disney’s Japanese television channels, such as ‘Toon Disney’. One
such show, RoboDz Kazagumo Hen/RoboDz (2008), though it first aired in Japan,
is more properly perhaps a transnational anime project, having also been
screened in the United States, with its shorter title RoboDz and Americanlanguage dub.
Even more complex examples of transcultural exchange can be found in the
many American Marvel comics currently being adapted into anime by Japanese
producers. Marvel has a long history of transcultural television production in
Japan, going back at least as far as the Supaidāman/Spider-Man series that the
company licensed to Toei’s live action television production unit in Japan in
the 1970s (now available through the Marvel website at http://marvel.com/
videos/watch/563/japanese_spiderman_episode_01). More recently, Simon
Phillips, from Marvel International, announced that the Japanese anime
company Madhouse would be ‘reimagining the back stories and redesigning
the look of Marvel’s stable of characters to reflect Japanese culture. “It will
create an entire parallel universe for Marvel”’ (Gustines 2008). In this way,
the American Marvel superheroes, as in the 1970s television series, will be
localized in an attempt to make these originally American superheroes appeal
across cultural borders. Additional special projects like Heroman, written by
ex-Marvel head Stan Lee, for the Japanese Studio Bones, indicate further
trends towards creating new American comic book-style products for the
Japanese marketplace (‘News’ 2009). As these examples suggest, convergence
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Rayna Denison
in the anime industry is not a simple case of Americanization, but a wholeheartedly complex mix of transcultural exchanges, from stylistic exchanges to
at least partial exchanges in personnel and graphic art-based cultures. What
the preceding industrial considerations cannot show, however, is the extent to
which such exchanges in style as cultures result in new forms of anime.
TRANSCULTURAL TEXTS: POSITIVE OCCIDENTALISM WITHIN ANIME
Kotaro: ‘Does that mean you are a foreigner?’
No Name (Nanashi): ‘Who knows? … But nobody points me out now
that I’ve learned to dye my hair’.
In 2008, Studio Bones released their first feature film anime, Sword of the
Stranger, which was a jidaigeki, or period, samurai action film. During the
dialogue quoted above, the nameless hero dyes his hair from its natural red,
back to a more usual, Japanese, black. The scene questions what (national)
kind of masculinity is most effective, as No Name’s archetypal Japanese hero is
here effectively unmasked as a cultural ‘Other’. Villainy is also westernized in
Sword of the Stranger in Luo-Lang. Speaking both Chinese and either English
or Japanese, depending on which version of the film is watched, antagonist
Luo-Lang is a Caucasian swordsman seeking to find his equal in battle. His
hybridized cultural identity is again rich with potential meaning. For example,
it would be easy to read Luo-Lang as a transcultural villain whose lack of fixed
nationality or cultural identity implies a lack of trustworthiness. Essentially
an inversion of No Name, Luo-Lang has too many potential identities to
be heroic. As this example demonstrates, it is possible to find discourses on
(trans)national identity in anime themselves, discourses that suggest creative
practices aimed at making anime relevant within transcultural markets.
This, despite claims for anime as mukokuseki, or stateless (Napier 2005).
Koichi Iwabuchi reads the term somewhat differently: ‘mukokuseki is used in
Japan in two different, though not mutually exclusive ways: to suggest the
mixing of elements of multiple cultural origins, and to imply the erasure of
visible ethnic and cultural characteristics’ (2002: 71). While he states that
the second definition has been the one most commonly applied to anime,
it is telling that the term can also mean something very close to the idea of
the transcultural. Here, I want to rethink this conceptualization of anime
in relation to what Millie R. Creighton has discussed as Japanese culture’s
positive take on occidentalism (1995). Unlike more negative discussions that
incorporate jihad and the politics of aggressive political resistance to perceived
westernization (Buruma and Margalit 2004), positive occidentalism enables
ambivalent, ambiguous representations of cultural others that inherently and
creatively mix ‘elements of multiple cultural origins’ within anime. This section
examines examples of anime that represent England in order to analyse how
positive occidentalism manifests within anime as part of the creative practices
of Japanese animators. The examples analysed were chosen to contrast
with existing work on the relationship between Japan and America, already
discussed elsewhere (Napier 2007), introducing a nation more frequently
associated with debates around orientalism and occidentalism: England.
There are, then, at several distinct representations of Englishness
frequently visible in anime. First, Englishness is often literally visible in anime
in representations of famous English brand name goods from fashion to food
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cultures, and in demonstrations of Japanese mastery over complex European
art cultures. Second, England is often narratively represented as a locus for
tourism (perhaps particularly London), with famous English sites deployed
as sites to be toured by anime characters. There are also nostalgic representations wherein anime highlight locations now lost or unused in contemporary
England, either because buildings no longer exist or because they have been
turned into tourist attractions. Finally, there are class representations used as
storytelling devices, most commonly with characters falling in love despite
class divides. Given the focus of this article, the examples below will expand
on just the two most central of these areas: the representations of English
branded goods and the touristic visions of England offered in anime.
Emma: A Victorian Romance (Eikoku Koi Monogatari Emma, 2005 and 2007,
hereafter Emma) is fairly unusual for an English-set anime in that it is a rather
straight romantic fiction. It has been selected here because it offers an intriguing set of practical and creative choices that, it will be argued, made it a transcultural text from its inception in Japan. Sharon Kinsella (1995), in ‘Cuties in
Japan’, outlines how many of the maid-style Victorian-inspired fashion trends
in Japan grew out of interest in more general infantilization of women’s fashion, known as kawaii or cute culture. It is from this milieu of Victoriana and
romance-inspired fads and trends (Mulhern 1989), and fantasy anime that
focus on women’s domestic work [notably seen in Hayao Miyazaki’s films,
perhaps most obviously Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)], that the manga for
Emma (Kaori Mori, 2002–2006, 2006–2008) emerged in 2002. Adapted into an
animated television series in 2005, the series has become popular enough to
merit international distribution to America, though not yet, officially, to the
United Kingdom.
Kaori Mori, the series creator and manga artist, has been quoted as
saying, ‘I was drawn to the Victorian English designs’ (Nozomi Entertainment
2008: 44) of English architecture and interior design. Playing into the first
category of branded Englishness, this borrowed iconography lifts details
from English history and re-imagines them in this anime as part of an overtly
consumerist discursive repertoire. For example, in Emma differences in households are represented through numbers of servants and the types of beverages
served to visitors. Moreover, shopping, as pastime for the rich, and job for
servants, is frequently depicted in Emma, which includes lingering sequences
in antiques stores, department stores, markets and other sites of consumption. More explicit branding also occurs in other anime set in England. For
example, in Kuroshitsuji (The Black Butler, 2008–2010, not yet released in the
United Kingdom), there is often a ‘cake of the week’ and a tea, including teas
from high-status retailers like Fortnum and Mason. Consuming Englishness in
anime thereby becomes intermingled with contemporary Japanese consumption practices (often of prestige brands like Fortnum and Mason), class divisions and aspirations, and with Victorian manners, etiquette and fashion,
suggesting a consumerist imagination at work in these depictions of English
culture by Japanese creative industries personnel.
A branded imagination of place is also apparent in the use of famous tourist spaces within anime like Emma. The Crystal Palace offers a good example of this trend. Japanese cultural objects were included for the first time at
the ‘London Great Exhibition’ in 1851, announcing the breadth of Japanese
cultural achievements to the world well before Japan was forced to reopen
to international trade in 1868. Joy Hendry has shown how influential this
Great Exhibition was, writing that the exhibition was so popular that ‘it was
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Rayna Denison
displayed again in 1853 in the exhibitions of Dublin and New York’ (2000: 54).
The venue for that Exhibition, the Crystal Palace, appears in a variety of
anime, including the high-profile film Steamboy (Suchı̄mubōi, 2004) http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Installing_Japanese_character_sets by Katsuhiro
Otomo. The now lost site of the Crystal Palace plays a significant role in
Emma, appearing repeatedly across the two seasons, and providing the central
characters with a fantastical space in which they shed their class distinctions
(William is a rich and aspirational merchant’s son while Emma is a workingclass maid) and enjoy their romance publicly. The choice of the Crystal Palace
by Mori and the Japanese animators is therefore important because it provides
an easily nostalgized, romanticized and ‘othered’ space in which the central
romance can unfold. The Crystal Palace is, therefore, simultaneously familiar
and unfamiliar as an inaccessible, past world space.
Reading the Englishness of Emma as ‘Other’ to Japanese society is especially difficult given the confusion here between vision and sound displayed in
the text. Both within Japan and beyond, Emma has yet to receive an Englishvoice dub, remaining a linguistically Japanese text throughout its distribution thus far. In tying visual representations of Victorian England to Japanese
language, which still retains hierarchical status markers and differing levels
of politeness to a greater degree than contemporary English language, the
distinctions between the English ‘Other’ and Japanese ‘Self” are emphatically hybridized. Consequently, the fetishization and commodification of
Victorian Englishness that works to ‘other’ England in Emma is domesticated for Japanese audiences through its soundscape. However, the reverse
is true in its international circulation, where its subtitling and retention of
that aural landscape create a temporally and culturally distant version of the
local for UK audiences. This decision by Nozomi Entertainment is especially
interesting given that its parent company’s Right Stuf, has been producing
English-language dub tracks for DVD since 1997 (http://www.rightstuf.com/
rssite/main/animeResources/individual/?ForumThreadName=FT0000001529).
It suggests either that the American recreators of Emma did not think that
an expensive English dub was viable, or perhaps more simply that Englishaccented voice actors were not available to the company.
Where these linguistic and pictorial juxtapositions create distance in the
transcultural markets for Emma at one extreme, contemporary horror texts
demonstrate more wholehearted adoptions of a transcultural set of creative
Anglo and European aesthetics at another. While quite dissimilar on many
levels to a text like Emma, Japan’s vampire anime do have in common with it a
shared European set of source materials and a rich European generic iconography. The transculturalization and hybridization of Japanese horror is especially easy to discern in one prominent set of characters, namely, vampires.
Japanese renderings of vampire mythology offer hybridized, if not fully transcultural, figures. For example, Christopher Bolton argues that vampires are a
relatively new addition to Japanese culture, featuring first in Japanese literature
in the 1930s. He argues that in Blood: The Last Vampire (Hiroyuki Kitakubo,
2000,) at least, we can read the vampire as a metaphor for cultural imperialism
and miscegenation of post-war Japanese culture (Bolton 2007). Interestingly,
however, the word used to describe the vampire in Blood, when it is not
chiropteran (meaning of the bat family), is a traditional word for demon, oni.
In the creative choice use of traditional names for these new monsters, we can
see a localizing of this potentially foreign set of villains, one that might make
them all the more transcultural.
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The ‘true’ vampire in Japanese vampire anime is perhaps an even more
culturally ambivalent figure than this suggests. Like Blood’s chiropterans, horror
anime frequently make use of doubled vampire ‘Others’, vampires that come
out of new generic collisions within anime texts. There is another common
generic collision between science fiction and horror in vampire anime. The
chiropterans offer an ambiguous example, but the ‘vampires’ of Trinity Blood
(2005) or Black Blood Brothers (2006) offer more straightforward examples. In
the former, vampire is the name given to an invading race of aliens, and in
Black Blood Brothers, villainous vampires are called Kowloon children, after
Kowloon Bay, where a war was fought between what we might think of as
traditional vampires and a new set of more ‘contagious’ vampire villains. In
all three of these examples, traditional vampires like Saya in Blood: The Last
Vampire and Jiro Mochizuki in Black Blood Brothers become heroic figures who
hunt and kill other vampires. The links between age, tradition and European
cultures embodied within the vampire-hunting vampire hero in these anime
suggests a different sort of positive occidentalism at work, wherein literary
vampiric figures are juxtaposed heroically against newer, Japanese-invented
or innovated monsters. This shift in genres and the monstrous nature of
Japanese anime’s vampires works to produce a set of deeply ambiguous
characters, whose creation is a product of transcultural industrial and textual
exchanges.
A clear-cut example can be found in the utilization of the Dracula myth
in the Hellsing Original Video Animations (OVAs: 2001–2002 and 2006–) in
which a character called ‘Alucard’ (Dracula spelt backwards) works for the
company founded by his nemesis ‘Hellsing’. Here the famous Dracula character is recuperated as an anti-hero, but denied his easily recognized name
in both English and Japanese versions of the text, the latter of which further
localizes the character with the name ‘Arucādo’. Positive occidentalism in
anime can be seen, through examples like these, to resonate with audiences
within and outside Japan, appearing across genres, markets and character types in order to produce a strong sense of transcultural flow, of a feedback loop of sorts, working between European and Japanese media cultures.
This sense of transcultural flow beyond Japanese borders has been led by fan
demand as much as by industries attempting to create or corner global animation markets.
FAN CREATIVITY IN TRANSCULTURAL ANIME PROSUMPTION
Many of the examples cited above were first made available to fans through
fan distribution networks online. Like older, analogue grey markets for anime
distribution, new digital technologies are enabling greater levels of access to
Japanese culture outside Japan, at least in countries with relatively high-speed
Internet connections and sufficient computer technologies. While fans of anime
texts have long translated and subtitled the Japanese texts that they could not
otherwise access (Leonard 2005), the relationship between this group and the
industries producing anime is now shifting. The phenomenon of ‘digisubbing’,
the production of fan-subtitled anime via digital reproduction technologies,
is also changing the relationship between fans and anime texts considerably. While on the one hand enabling greater fan creativity in the reproduction of anime texts, it is also enabling a vast increase in the illegitimate flow
of anime outside Japan. One of the major changes relates to re-production,
that is to say, to the now decentralized nature of anime fansubbing (Pouwelse
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et al. 2008). Digisubbing allows the process of subtitling to be divided up into
separate tasks that can be undertaken in geographically dispersed locations
(Peréz-González 2007). While many fan subtitling groups do meet face-toface, Internet Relay Chat groups online, messaging and website forums now
mean that they do not have to do so to work together effectively. The effect is
that fansubbing groups follow a flexible and diversified production and distribution model, and that the finished product of one group can be taken up by
other groups and re-engineered into ever new languages, spreading across
geo-linguistic borders. However, in practice, due to the technological requirements (high-speed broadband Internet connections, potentially some server
space depending on dissemination technology and personal computers with
significant memory capacity), and pre-existing geographical concentration of
anime fandom, there is an apparent bias towards groups being based in the
United States (Hatcher 2005), which may help to explain why a high proportion of the groups subtitling do so originally in English.
In addition to being decentralized, anime fansubbing has also become
cheap and creative. Groups can buy or download relatively inexpensive technologies to help them re-produce their fansubbed versions of anime, like
the open source (free) Aegisub program that most use to append subtitles to
audio-visual anime files (http://www.aegisub.net/). The cheap technologies,
and speedy availability of raw footage from Japan, coincide to help fansubbers
produce ‘speedsubs’, fansubtitled versions of anime produced under racelike conditions as groups battle to produce the best, fastest subs (Berstchy
2008; http://www.dattebayo.com/). Moreover, the use of digital technologies enables greater creative impact by fan groups, who can use outlandish fonts and ‘karaoke’-style texts that bounce across the screen, and can
even create group logos that can be placed in close proximity to those of the
original Japanese creators. The heightened emphasis on speed ensures that
fansubbed versions of new Japanese titles are available long before the industry has typically been able to negotiate for the right to re-dub them, and the
greater creative freedom also ensures that the works of particular groups can
be easily recognized by their fans. It has been the speed of fansubs, therefore, along with the large numbers of shows available online, and the ease of
their distribution, that has placed the fansub community in conflict with the
industry. More than in the past, too, fansub groups are bringing individuality to their productions that promotes their own work sometimes as much as
that of the original creators.
For example, Soul Eater (2008–2009), chosen here because it follows a
pattern largely typical for recent anime series and was the most high profile
release from Japan at the 2008 ‘Tokyo International Anime Fair’, offers
good examples of the visible invisibility of fansub groups and their creative practices. In relation to its viewership, Soul Eater was being discussed
by fans on the Anime News Network website (a central industry and fan
source online) within six hours of its initial broadcast in Japan. These were,
however, fans who had viewed the raw (Japanese language) version of the
episode, and not a fansubbed one. A fansubbed version was announced on
the forum two days later, though fans questioned its quality (http://www.
animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=54204&postdays=0&
postorder=asc&start=0). However, over 50 groups eventually subtitled Soul
Eater in a wide range of languages (see: http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.
pl?show=anime&aid=5610). One of the most visible groups subtitling Soul
Eater was Rumbel Subs. Despite the grey, (il)legal nature of their creative
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work, Rumbel Subs have their own public website (http://www.rumbelsubs.com/), which includes a discussion forum and information about their
releases.
Rumbel is particularly interesting in terms of fansubtitling practices
because they are more subtle than some of their competitors (for more on
fansub practices, see Lee 2010, in this issue; Peréz-González 2007). They limit
their visibility within the text by not writing their name over title sequences,
as many groups do, instead placing a small brand logo in the top right corner
of the screen at the end of opening credits. While this can be read as limiting
their disruption of the text, their presence as fansubtitlers is signalled in other
ways, and the relatively covert nature of their practice could just as easily be
read as a shift towards the standardization of, and even professionalization
of, anime fansubbing practices. Moreover, their use of fonts is certainly more
adventurous than the off-white normally used as an industry standard (their
work includes non-standard fonts, text that scrolls across the screen to create
karaoke versions of opening and closing songs, in addition to non-standard
colours such as red subtitles). Their presence within the anime is thus
signalled through their use of what might be termed an ‘amateur standard’
followed by fan subtitlers. Luis Peréz-González (2007) has cited the use of
outlandish fonts, placement of subtitles in unexpected positions on-screen
and the translation of Japanese on-screen texts as the normal ways in which
fansubtitling practices can be differentiated from those of the industry. The
increasing standardization of anime fansubtitlers’ practices is just one way
in which the anime fansubtitlers are challenging industrial norms of creative
practice, introducing new aesthetics and transcultural audiences for anime.
Improvements in home computing are similarly changing fan collecting
habits (for more information on this, see Lee 2011, in this issue). They enable
fans to have sometimes terabytes-worth of media product housed in their
personal computers, and BitTorrent enables collecting without insisting upon
fan-community engagement beyond collecting. BitTorrent’s impact on the
anime fan community is therefore twofold, doing away with the necessity for
strong community ties between fans and fan producers, while simultaneously
making anime fansubs more available for collecting. As the main distribution
model for the industries in Japan and America remains DVD based, this new
online collecting behaviour is placing the industry increasingly at odds with
the fan community it serves. This is not to suggest that fans are only interested
in viewing fansubbed anime, and many do not engage with fansubs at all, but
the anime industry in America is now clear about the negative impact that
these online fansubs are having (Koulikov 2008). Convergence thus demonstrably takes place along divergent interstices and when these communities
come together, as in the case of media industries for anime and the participatory fandom(s) online, conflicts arise, often around claims to authenticity and
legitimacy (Jenkins 2004). In the case of anime fansubs and BitTorrent, active
fans may actually be creating a massified, less engaged set of viewers who do
not pay for their anime texts, and who can create large stockpiles of texts that
mean they never will.
CONCLUSIONS
From industrial production to fan re-production, the anime text is a mutable,
shifting entity that requires a flexible set of tools for investigation. Creative
practices do not align – fans produce works that are very different to those
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Rayna Denison
of the industry, and even industrial practices of remediation are not uniform,
with some anime titles receiving re-voicing while others are simply subtitled. The result is that the transcultural audiences for anime do not consume
these texts in any sort of standardized way. Moreover, the creative practices
of Japanese producers in working with companies from outside Japan, and,
it seems, increasingly featuring characters and settings that work to create
transcultural anime, means that these texts are becoming ever more familiar to even the global locations most remote from Japan. In these ways then,
the cultural practices of industry and fans need to be viewed as a constantly
changing and interacting set of creative processes, which can, but do not
always, inform one another. While the result may be an increasingly transcultural type of anime product and fandom, this may not have been the initial
aim; indeed, the more anime texts engage with representing the wider world,
the more the Japaneseness of these texts, as with Emma: A Victorian Romance,
may be thrown into relief. Moreover, as fans enter into more creative reproduction practices, the sense of where anime is ‘made’ is becoming more and
more difficult to pinpoint with any accuracy. It may be then that transcultural
linguistic markets provide a better means by which to understand anime’s
global presence than is the case with traditional regions and national markets.
It may be at the level of reproduction, rather than initial inception, that anime
is becoming most globalized.
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SUGGESTED CITATION
Denison, R. (2010), ‘Transcultural creativity in anime: Hybrid identities in the
production, distribution, texts and fandom of Japanese anime’, Creative
Industries Journal 3: 3, pp. 221–235, doi: 10.1386/cij.3.3.221_1
CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS
Rayna Denison lectures and researches in the area of Asian Film and Television
at the University of East Anglia. She has published a range of articles on anime
culture, including articles in the Animation Journal. She is currently writing
Anime: A Critical Introduction for Berg.
Contact: Room 1.46, c/o Room 2.40, Arts 2 Building, School of Film and
Television Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, Norfolk NR4 7TJ, UK.
E-mail: r.denison@uea.ac.uk
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The Media Economy
Second Edition
Alan B. Albarran
This edition published 2017
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Taylor & Francis
The right of Alan B. Albarran to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2010
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Albarran, Alan B., author.
Title: The media economy / Alan B. Albarran.
Description: Second edition. | Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY :
Routledge, 2017. | Series: Media management and economics series |
Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016009856| ISBN 9781138886094 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781138886087 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315715094 (ebk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Mass media—Economic aspects.
Classification: LCC P96.E25 A483 2017 | DDC 338.4/730223—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016009856
ISBN: 978-1-138-88609-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-88608-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-71509-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon Std
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
CHAPTER 4
Evolving Markets in the Media Economy
In this chapter you will learn:
• how to define a market in the media economy;
• traditional approaches used to define media markets, including
the theory of the firm;
• why media markets are constantly evolving across all levels of
the media economy;
• the different forces impacting markets found in the media economy.
Building on the previous chapters regarding economic theories and concepts used in understanding the media economy, this chapter focuses on
defining the market itself, and how markets are continuing to evolve
across the media economy in the 21st century. The classical definition
of a “market” in economic terms refers to the location where suppliers
and buyers interact to determine the price of goods. Picture this type of
activity held centuries ago, when merchants and farmers would bring
their goods for sale to a town marketplace and would negotiate with
potential buyers wanting to purchase goods in a physical, face-to-face
environment.
Today this type of market activity still exists through venues like the
commodity and financial exchanges on Wall Street and other economic
centers around the globe, but there are also countless market activities
occurring in many different locations, at many different times and places
across business and industry. The market in the media economy is the
aggregate of many supply and demand situations involving advertising, content, technology, and other media-related firms. In the media
economy, market activity takes place from business to business, between
consumers and business, and even from consumers to consumers
52
EVOLVING MARKETS IN THE MEDIA ECONOMY
(see Table 4.1). Transactions and market acquisitions can occur in physical
settings or via cyberspace with digital-based transactions (e-commerce).
DEFINING THE MEDIA MARKET
Traditionally, the field of media economics has defined a media market
as consisting of both a product dimension and a geographical dimension (Picard, 1989). The product could be a newspaper, motion picture,
sound recording, television program, podcast, or any other media-related
product. The geographical dimension reflects the location where the
products are offered, which can range from a local media product (e.g.,
a newspaper, or broadcast of a local radio or TV station) to the national
or the global market fo…