The importance of being Irish

By Steven Zeitchik

Traveling to other countries -- and dragging unsuspecting companions/victims to movie theaters in said countries -- always yields a nugget or two about the gulf between Hollywood's understanding of the international marketplace and the reality of the thing.

We've spent the last few days in Ireland, and what we've encountered (besides unintentional nutrition experiments) is just how much the arthouse and multiplex can bleed together in places outside the  U.S.

At Cineworld, Dublin's biggest multiplex, there's a host of predictable choices -- "The Spirit" and "Bedtime Stories" and everything else Hollywood produces as much for foreign export as internal consumption. But sprinkled in are titles you'd never expect in a multiplex abroad, mainly because you'd never see them in a multiplex at home -- "Rachel Getting Married" and "Che" and other titles that are kept strictly cordoned off stateside.

Part of the reason for this bleeding over is of course a shortage of foreign screens for the voluminous number of U.S. exports. But the unlikely pairings also suggest something else: there are fewer distinctions and rules about what the foreign market will accept than Hollywood execs tend to assume. Stars matters to mainstream overseas audiences, but so do big political and emotional topics. 

If the movies are Exhibit A of this unruly crossover, the theaters themselves aren't far behind. Cineworld has the lounge-y adult-centric bar you'd see at a Landmark or other arthouse outlet in the U.S. -- even though the Dublin theater is a decidedly mall-ish space that features multiple video arcades and a teen-friendly snack stand selling enough sugar to rouse Oscar Wilde.

Hollywood is learning in ways hard and easy how tricky the foreign market can be. "Role Models" was a minor hit in the states. In Ireland we were surprised to see that the legislature recently passed a law mandating that ads for the Sean William Scott meisterwork appear on every second bus.

Meanwhile, MGM marketing brass, which managed the "Valkyrie" campaign very carefully in the U.S, would have strangled in the womb a three-dimensonal "Valkyrie" display that makes Tom Cruise look shorter than Tom Thumb.

And only in the country of Yeats could a gritty film like "Slumdog Millionaire" be the "feelgood movie of the decade," as ubiquitous posters around Ireland proclaimed it to be.

Hollywood execs are no doubt right to take swings with certain kind of exports -- and, eventually, production -- across Europe and around the world. They may just need to swing a little differently.