Do Canadian Films Make Money?

Ever wonder if Canadian (Quebec is a different matter) movies make any movie? I do. My guess, before searching for answers, was no. And lo and behold that's mostly the case.

Here's a link to James O'Regan's thoughts about selling and marketing Canadian films:

"My short comedy, Edsville - about an innocent young couple that stumbles upon a town of Ed Sullivan impersonators - has a recoupment rate of 20% while the average recoupement rate published in Telefilm's annual report, year after year, hovers at 2%-ish. I've also observed what our Yankee cousins actually do."

"...If you don't spend that $1M, you are guaranteed to make nothing at the Canadian box office. Telefilm Canada and its producers don't spend the money and the results are predictable. Movies funded by Telefilm Canada don’t earn a profit from Canadian box office; they don't even recoup. Telefilm Canada data shows that Canadian distributors have an average marketing budget per Canadian film of $30,000 - about $970K short of what they need; that this average results from a blend of a majority of films released with an actual budget of less than $10,000. Hoo boy, why aren't these films making the big bucks, eh?"

Hasn't branding always been a problem and weak point with Canada/Canadians?

"...Why isn't it working now? Why is Telefilm's record so dismal? Public policy has intervened in the movie business only at the level of manufacturing - dolling out wallops of cash to make movies. The new funds maintain that approach. This is simply bad policy and we have bank vaults full of unseen films to prove it."

What is Canadian film anyway? I like this take from Gerald Pratley:

"Except that is, films made in Québec. Yet even here the decline into worthlessness over the past two years has become apparent. It is noticeable that, when the media in the provinces other than Québec talk about Canadian films, they are seldom thinking of those in French. This means that we are forced, when talking about Canadian cinema, into a form of separation because Québec film making is so different from "ours", making it impossible to generalize over Canadian cinema as a whole.

If we are to believe everything the media tells us then David Cronenberg, whose work is morbid, Atom Egoyan, whose dabblings leave much to be desired, Guy Maddin, who is lost in his own dreams, and Patricia Rozema, who seldom seems to know what she is doing, are among the world's leading filmmakers. These directors have become fashionable on the international festival circuit and media darlings at home. In the company of others, they have created a cult following and spend much of their time traveling around explaining their films, returning to obtain more grants from Telefilm to make more films that have little to do with Canada. Denys Arcand, Gilles Carle, André Melancon, Micheline Lanctôt, André Forcier, Robert Lepage, and other talented Québec filmmakers receive occasional mentions. Conversely it must be said that English-speaking directors seldom get mentioned in the Québec media, but given their disappointing record this is understandable."

"...Our producers, who are only in film as a business to make money rather than to put their country on the screen, use our small market as a reason to concentrate on pseudo-American films they are certain will show profits from the US market. They seldom do, but producers never learn. To spend more than these sums on a truly Canadian picture is to invite financial loss unless it finds wide public acceptance in this country"

"Commercial films do not necessarily mean bad films (consider The English Patient, Shine and Big Night -- respectively British, Australian, US) which were not conceived as moneymakers, but as genuinely creative works their makers believed would appeal to an intelligent audience, recover their costs, leaving enough to start their next film. Telefilm is usually silent when films of this nature are proposed here. What are films expected to do other than to entertain their audiences and make money for their producers? It is quite customary these days for films to be recognised as being both an art and a business. Filmmaking is not an industry (Stelco and General Motors are 'industry') although people working in films constantly refer to filming as "our industry". As an art, films are living pictures, true or false, of the countries and the people they represent."

"In 'ROC' films, the characters never talk about where they come from or mention where they are going. The very thought of dialogue saying "I'm from Alberta" or "I'm going to Newmarket" never crosses a writer's mind or if it does the producers will probably remove it. No one in our films is seen reading The Globe and Mail or the Toronto Sun (in a recent film, a bundle of newspapers being delivered was turned upside down to avoid revealing its name), no radio announcer is ever heard to say "This is the CBC." -- a recent exception being Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy. The police are seldom identified by their actual uniforms and the cars they use, no politicians are ever mentioned, no hospitals, schools or public buildings are identified, and seldom a maple leaf flag is seen flying. Contrast this with what we see in American and Québec films."

"As the 1998 begins we again hear Sheila Copps indignantly chattering on about what she is going to do to improve the "distribution" of our films to our cinemas. She is appalled that "so few get shown". What she is referring to is exhibition and in this she doesn't know the first thing about the film business. Has she actually seen all the Canadian films she is so anxious to have shown? Overcome by feting Egoyan on Parliament Hill she thinks that we are bursting at the seams with creative filmmaking and being unfairly treated by Hollywood. If she opened every Canadian film made last year in our cinemas, most would be empty. The place for the best of our films to be seen today by the public across the nation is on television -- without being ruined by commercial interruptions. But does the CBC show the way? Hardly, look what it does to its own productions. Through its taxes the public pays to have films made and it pays for the CBC to show them; but our "public service" broadcaster will not find the money to show them to us without breaks. It could if it cared to but it doesn't. It likes to look and behave as the US networks do; it is one of the ultimate symbols of our acceptance of doing things the American way, in this case within the world of film and television."

Copps: This was a woman who believed calling a 1-800 to get a flag was a good way to foster Canadian pride and unity. Such are the ideas from Canada's "natural" governing party: The Liberals and their army of bad scripts, erm, policies.

Personally, as a Canadian, I do find Canadian films to, like the nation as a whole, lack an identity. It's not enough to brag about directors and their "autership". Most people don't care about that. Just because Egoyan is Canadian doesn't make his films "Canadian" or good for that matter.
The public wants to see good movies - whatever that means since no one knows what will work and make money. But one things Canadians suck at, it's script writing. Unless, of course, they're working for American movie companies - or me. Because I've been told. So there.

Therein lies a problem, I think. Our best simply gravitate to the United States. It must have an effect on our films here, no?