This initiative has been to the advantage all of the parties involved. According to Andre Lange of the European Audiovisual Observatory, approximately a quarter of all European films are co-productions, and that such co-productions benefit from both wider distribution in foreign markets and bigger box office on average than films that were not co-productions; roughly a third of the admissions for European films were generated by co-productions, demonstrating impressive return on investment.
Ireland tends to do quite well out of these arrangements, particularly considering its size and its contributions to the funds. In terms of film, the European Audiovisual Observatory estimated that such investment accounted for 6% of the spend in theatrical development in Ireland. Ireland ranked sixth when measured in those terms, our total national investment in film heavily bolstered by this spend. This includes initiatives like Creative Europe, which allocates grants of between €10,000 and €60,000 per film, although never more than fifty percent of a film’s production budget. Creative Europe’s total spend in Ireland for 2018 is estimated to fall between €70,000 and €200,000.
It has been suggested that Ireland would be particularly vulnerable to any diminishing of this collective investment in international co-productions. Lange has argued that smaller markets like Ireland and Belgium are especially threatened by this possible erosion, as their national audiences cannot support the same breadth and diversity of content as European investment in international co-production. There is some anecdotal evidence to support this argument, based on how Netflix has chosen to invest in European film and television.
Netflix has made a sizable commitment to European film and television, understanding the need to provide audiences in these countries with media tailored to their own tastes and culture. In March 2017, Netflix announced plans to invest $1.75bn in European content, with 90 co-productions in various states of development across the continent. In April 2017, Las chicas del cable became Netflix’s first Spanish original series. Dogs of Berlin is a German series expected to launch later this year, and Osmosis is a French series that is expected to enter production in the next few months.
More than that, Netflix has proven willing to partner with domestic producers and distributors, most notably with the BBC in Great Britain. Netflix has co-produced Duty/Shame, Troy: Fall of a City and The Forgiving Earth (formerly known as Black Earth Rising) with the BBC, all productions that filmed internationally and are expected to air on BBC and be released on Netflix later this year. This arrangement provides important support to the finance and distribution of these films.
There is also something to be said for the exposure that Netflix potentially brings to these series, allowing global audiences access to content that would not normally be available to them. This is particularly true of recent German co-production Dark, which garnered impressive media coverage and on-line chatter across the world. Netflix obvious does not release ratings for its content, so it is hard to objectively measure penetration, but this series has clearly crossed borders, with many commentators likening it to one of the company’s break-out hits Stranger Things.
60 CinÉireann / February 2018