Homegrown heroes
Spanish pics nab 16% of B.O. market share
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Spanish pics took a 16.4% theatrical market share over the first five months of 1999. Analysts have to go back to 1984 for a full year when domestic pics clinched a bigger market share -- 21%.
Local pic market share dipped to 7%-9% in the 1992-94 period, then edged up to 12%-13% for three of the last four full years.
Auteur theory
Some reasons for Spain's enhanced market share seem clear: All four of Spain's top mainstream auteurs bowed new films in late 1998 or early 1999. In contrast, of U.S. releases, only "A Bug's Life" ($11.8 million) grossed significant B.O. over the same period.
In the January to May period, local big guns Alex de la Iglesia ("Dying of Laughter," $6 million from January to May), Pedro Almodovar ("All About My Mother" $4.4 million), Fernando Trueba ("The Girl of Your Dreams," $4 million) and Manuel Gomez Pereira ("Between Your Legs," $3.3 million) all fired off powerful B.O. fusillades.
The other top grossing foreign pics in Spain in the January-May 1999 period were upscalers "Life Is Beautiful" ($13.8 million) and "Shakespeare in Love" ($9.9 million).
With "The Phantom Menace" set to launch today on a record 350 copies, most local industryites predict Spanish pics' final market share for 1999 coming in around last year's 12%.
Trend to continue
But nobody now sees Spain's pic revival as a fluke. Factors favoring the renaissance include the emergence of new directors, far more aggressive marketing and changed attitudes toward local pics from cinemagoers.
A recent study by SGAE, an authors' rights org, suggested that core audiences for films in Spain are people younger than 35, especially in the 21-24 bracket, who belong to Spain's upper or upper-middle-classes, and who have a college education.
In the '80s, educated Spaniards rejected local filmmaking for its terrible gross-out comedies or (for them) tedious social-conscience movies. Young educated Spaniards now seem to identify far more with local pics and are increasingly discriminating about imports.
