Putting International BO Numbers in Perspective

[baumer]

I calculated for Israel based on numbers from here(PDF), which has a lot of countries, but is a bit dated.

Wow. That's pretty cool. Thanks Tower.

[peludo]

How do you find the yearly box office for any country? I know Inny Binny did that at Mojo. So the easiest way to figure it out was if the US did 10 billion in sales and Australia did say 1 billion in sales, then that is where the 10:1 ratio comes from. But Mojo doesn't list a yearly sales chart. And I'm not adding up 300 movies for each country to come up with a ratio.

I do not use exactly numbers. As you have said, it is difficult to find out the global box office of each country. I use references from BOM yearly lists for each country. I take a significant milestone as it can be get 100 million in US and I try to extrapolate to the market which I am comparing to. In the last 3 years, US has had 32 (2009), 30 (2010) and 30 (2011) movies over 100 million. If we go to French lists for that years we find that the movie which ranks 30th grossed 13 million. And for the moment, in 2012, 18 movies has grossed 100 million in US and 20 movies has grossed 13 million in France. Every year we have a similar amount of movies making 100 million in US and 13 million in France.13.0 give us a 7.7:1 ratio and 13.9 give us a 7.2:1 ratio. We could take 7.5 as an average ratio. Edited September 13, 2012 by peludo

[peludo]

I calculated for Israel based on numbers from here(PDF), which has a lot of countries, but is a bit dated.

That document is just amazing. Thank you very much

[Tower]

I calculated for Israel based on numbers from here(PDF), which has a lot of countries, but is a bit dated.

If anyone is interested in previous versions than here is the link (this years version cost 30 Euros).

[peludo]

again, THANK YOU VERY MUCH . I have been looking for something like this a long time. It's incredible

[JCS]

Thanks Tower, great find!

[Tower]

I used that file to calculate the ratios for each market, with the latest year available. of course, for a fast changing market like China, this won't be very accurate for 2012.

2009:

DOM 2009: 10.61B

Japan: 2.2B, (4.82:1)

France: 1.72B, (6.17:1) (including the former French north African colonies)

UK: 1.645B, (7.45:1) (including Ireland, because that is how we get film numbers)

Germany: 1.357B, (7.82:1)

Italy: 940M, (11.3:1)

Spain: 928M, (11.4:1)

China: 906M, (11.7:1)

South Korea: 854M (12.4:1)

Australia: 848M, (12.5:1)

Russia: 735M, (14.4:1)

Mexico: 563M, (18.9:1)

Brazil: 483M, (22:1)

Netherlands: 279M, (38:1)

Poland: 218M, (48.7:1)

Switzerland: 211M, (50.2:1)

Sweden: 202M: (52.5:1)

Turkey 198M: (53.6:1)

Denmark 192M: (55.3:1)

Austria: 182M, (58.4:1)

Taiwan: 172.3M, (61.6:1)

Norway: 166M, (64.1:1)

Venezuela: 164M, (64.9:1)

Hong Kong: 152M, (69.7:1)

Argentina: 126M, (84.1:1)

Singapore: 115M, (92:1)

Malaysia: 114M, (93:1)

Portugal: 103M, (103:1)

Colombia: 91.7M, (116:1)

Finland: 80.6M, (132:1)

Chile: 66.6M, (159:1)

Czech Republic: 65.5M, (162:1)

Peru: 62.6M, (169:1)

Hungary: 55.5M, (191:1)

Egypt: 54.9M, (193:1)

Romania: 28.4M, (374:1)

Slovakia: 23.5M, (451:1)

Bulgaria: 17.9M, (593:1)

Slovenia: 16.2M, (655:1)

Croatia: 15.9M, (667:1)

Iceland: 11.3M, (939:1)

Uruguay: 10M, (1,061:1)

2008:

DOM 2008: 9.635B

India: 1.86B, (5.18:1)

Belgium: 187M, (51.5:1)

Philippines: 113.8M, (84.7:1)

Israel: 105.8M, (91.1:1)

Indonesia: 102.2M, (94.3:1)

Thailand: 101.3M, (95.1:1)

United Arab Emirates: 74.2M, (130:1)

South Africa: 52.3M, (184:1)

Kuwait: 19.8M, (487:1)

Bahrain: 16.9M, (570:1)

Qatar: 13M, (741:1)

Lebanon: 12.2M, (790:1)

Bolivia: 2.9M, (3,322:1)

Edited September 14, 2012 by Tower

[baumer]

You are awesome. Yes, it's three years old, but except for the expanded markets like China and Russia, this should be at least a good barometer to go by.

[Fake]

^ These ratios are not of much use..... because many markets have their local industries as well..... if we could find Hollywood's share in all the markets, and then calculate the ratios, it would be great.

[Tower]

I actually prefer it this way, local films are part of the market, I don't they should be ignored, and doing so would give you a distorted view of how big an effect a Hollywood film has on a market.

[peludo]

I actually prefer it this way, local films are part of the market, I don't they should be ignored, and doing so would give you a distorted view of how big an effect a Hollywood film has on a market.

Absolutely agreed. Hollywood is the biggest movie industry, but not the only one. There are many people in foreign markets who are not interested in Hollywood movies, but they are interested in local movies. French movies has a 40% share in France, which it is about the same than Hollywood movies share, China tries to protect Chinese movies as we have recently seen with TASM, TDKR, TE2 and Prometheus. In the same way, it is very difficult for a foreign movie to get a big release in USA. Each market has its own peculiarites and we must not obviate them.(This is my 1,000 post ) Edited September 16, 2012 by peludo

[Fake]

The purpose of this thread to put a Hollywood movie's performance in a certain market in perspective.

Conversely, if we know about the domestic performance of a certain movie, we can find out what can be expected from a certain OS market.

Say a movie made 500m in NA. Then what should roughly be the gross in say, India? If you go by the overall box office, which is about 20% of NA, you would end up with 100M. But comparing with Hollywood's share, which is 10% of Indian box office, and 2% of NA box office, you get $10M, which is a good mark to expect.

[peludo]

No, the purpose of this thread is to find out an equivalence to USA numbers in foreign markets to know what is a good number or not in each one, independently of the nationality of the movie.

I do not use the global gross of my country because the reason you have given. I prefer to give a number that can be considered as a significant mark like 100 million $ is in USA. With that reference we can help people to understand if a number is good or don't.

The case I better know is Spanish one. I posted this in first page of this thread:

A good number in Spain is 6 million euros. With the today's dollar-euro exchange ratio (1.34), that's equivalent to 8 million dollar. I think the mark of 6 million euros (8 million dollar) in Spain is equivalent to 100 million in US. For instance, in 2010, in US there were 30 movies with 100 million dollar or more and in Spain there were 29 movies with 8 million dollar or more. In 2009, 32 in US and 30 in Spain with the same limits. In 2008, 29 in US and 33 in Spain. They are very similar numbers of movies.

Such Intouchables and Avengers have grossed here 20 million $. That could translated to 250 million in USA (12.5:1 ratio) with the reference I have given. It's a good number but not a record. That's the perspective we are trying to find here. Of course, it needs to be modified if exchange rate changes, but I think it is a good example to know what is a success or what is not in each country.

[Fake]

No it's not..... you are not getting it......Going by the ratios for overall box office, Avengers should have made $120m in India......

[Tower]

No it's not..... you are not getting it......Going by the ratios for overall box office, Avengers should have made $120m in India......

Yes, it would have, the fact that it could never come anywhere near that, is a consequence of being the market being dominated by local films.

[peludo]

Yes, I get it. This system works for many countries. The "problem" with Indian case is that Indian people LOVE Indian movies and foreign movies are not as big as in other countries. It is the same than US. If an Indian movie grosses 300 million in USA it would be a shocking event. In the same way, if a Hollywood movie ranks first of a year in India it would be strange (please, correct me if I'm wrong).India is, by far, the country in the world that makes more movies per year. It is a special case. The highest grossing movies in India are Indian movies. But the fact is in most countries the general rule is that Hollywood movies are the highest grossers. You have a very strong industry and Indian people prefer Indian movies before others.Given you know better than anyone in this forums how Indian market works, you could find out a way to understand what is a good number in your country for foreign movies, but in other markets the system works because the highest movies are the same than in US.

Edited September 16, 2012 by peludo

[Fake]

Yes, it would have, the fact that it could never come anywhere near that, is a consequence of being the market being dominated by local films.

The fact is that no movie ever has even done half of that, period.

The purpose for this thread was to give those people some ratios who don't know much about foreign box office, like somebody would say... oh Avengers made 600m in NA.... with 2% ratio for India, it would be grossing in 10-15m region there.

[Fake]

Yes, I get it. This system works for many countries. The "problem" with Indian case is that Indian people LOVE Indian movies and foreign movies are not as big as in other countries. It is the same than US. If an Indian movie grosses 300 million in USA it would be a shocking event. In the same way, if a Hollywood movie ranks first of a year in India it would be strange (please, correct me if I'm wrong).India is, by far, the country in the world that makes more movies per year. It is a special case. The highest grossing movies in India are Indian movies. But the fact is in most countries the general rule is that Hollywood movies are the highest grossers. You have a very strong industry and Indian people prefer Indian movies before others.Given you know better than anyone in this forums how Indian market works, you could find out a way to understand what is a good number in your country for foreign movies, but in other markets the system works because the highest movies are the same than in US.

In addition to India, SK and Japan etc. also have a big share from local movies.Better way to get ratios would probably to be take the gross of 5th or 10th highest grossing Hollywood movie of a year in all the markets and just calculate the ratios. It would always more accurately portray the potential of a Hollywood film in a certain market, regardless of the state of local movie industry.

[peludo]

In addition to India, SK and Japan etc. also have a big share from local movies.Better way to get ratios would probably to be take the gross of 5th or 10th highest grossing Hollywood movie of a year in all the markets and just calculate the ratios. It would always more accurately portray the potential of a Hollywood film in a certain market, regardless of the state of local movie industry.

I can take that . My purpose was to get a general vision of markets to see what movie is big or don't, independently of the nationality of the movie. But given each market has its own peculiarities we have to analyze each market individually. In my case, I say that in Spain to get 6 million € (8 million $) is very similar to get 100 million $ in US, independently of nationality of the movie.If you say that 10 million $ for a foreign movie in India is like 600 in USA, I will take that.

[Tower]

The fact is that no movie ever has even done half of that, period.

The purpose for this thread was to give those people some ratios who don't know much about foreign box office, like somebody would say... oh Avengers made 600m in NA.... with 2% ratio for India, it would be grossing in 10-15m region there.

Both my way and yours are valid, they simply measure different things. The link I gave has the data for local film percent of the market for a lot of the markets, if you want to calculate that then that is fine.