erik lundegaard

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Tuesday May 22, 2018

Shining City on a Hollywood Hill

Hollywood sign

It still astounds me that one of America's most successful industries is forever being disparaged by the political party that claims to care about American industry.

This is from two weeks ago on box office mojo:

Worldwide box office May 2018

Look at that. What other country can do that? None. I‘ve written about the box office of “Wolf Warrior II” and other Chinese films, as well as the fact that China is on the verge of becoming the world’s No. 1 movie marketplace. But Chinese films don't travel well. Few besides the Chinese go see them. The world goes to see Hollywood films. 

Americans don't comprehend how much Hollywood dominates the world maybe because we‘re used to it and maybe because we’re too close to it, but it's stunning and has real-world consequences. China Daily just posted an article on the number of Chinese students who come to the U.S. to study. Their lede is about a young man from Henan province who became determined to study here after seeing a Hollywood movie (“High School Musical”). He's not alone. People don't come here just because there's greater freedom, or because within a generation your family can become American—in a way that you can never become, say, Chinese or French. It's more than that. It's the movies. The shining city on a hill has a Hollywood sign on it.

Posted at 06:08 AM on Tuesday May 22, 2018 in category Movies - Box Office