I've notice a few movies that had done poorly in the US but outstanding overseas which in turn determine sequels etc
shareHollywood doesn't make movies for the American market anymore, likely because Americans are critical and pretty fickle.
shareIn terms of Hollywood, they use "Hollywood accounting". I read somewhere that if a movie makes 2x more than it's budget domestically, it was a good movie. International does not really matter, as it is a means to break even. There is not much profit to be made internationally and of course, currency exchange rates also play a role.
shareIt's hard to make movies for both American and International audience because of the increasing difference in political stances. Americans wants politically correct movies with multi cultural and white and black actors equal screentime, women, gays, etc. International audience (mostly China market) don't care.
A movie with all straight white cis male actors stir no controversy in China as long as it has dumb action, melodrama, and Chinese product placements randomly inserted for the white actors to use including the token Chinese girl (apparently they take pride in this), and of course doesn't offend the Communist Party's sensibilities.
For example : resident evil the final chapter.It was a big dissapointment in US,but in Asian market and Europe was a box office succes.
shareI don't know how well the Chinese are doing on the big spectacle action movie front, but if you're in the mood for that, Hollywood is you best bet. I'm hard-pressed to think of an European film that has the scope of a big American action movie (correct me if I'm wrong). I think that's the draw for these movies internationally. And Hollywood of course wants to capitalise on that.
This pandering to international audiences might be annoying to Americans, but Hollywood is catching up to the fact that they do make movies for the whole world, not just the US. I don't know how fair that is to American audiences, though.
But it's annoying to me to see EE characters be the baddies in so many movies, with ridiculous accents to boot (just a personal pet peeve). We do watch these movies, and it can go into offensive territory (*cough* Spy's sad Bulgarian clown *cough*). In fairness, this shouldn't be of much concern to American viewers.
I might have gone on a bit of a rant...
Chinese "big budget" action movies are actually pretty good considering they use only tiny budget compared to Hollywood's REAL big budget movies.
Recently they have The Great Wall which while not a masterpiece but honestly still better than recent American productions like the Ben-Hur remake and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.
Oh, I see. I haven't seen any of these. And I hate to admit it, but I'm not that familiar with Chinese cinema. But it's still a huge market, so it makes sense on a finantial level that Hollywood wants a chunk of that.
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