![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank filmmaker and screenwriter Borja Cobeaga for gracefully answering our questions in a personal interview.
We would also like to thank Christopher Meir for his invaluable feedback.
Vicente Rodríguez Ortega has written this article as part of the research project “Cine y televisión en España en la era del cambio digital y la globalización (1993-2008): identidades, consumo y formas de producción.” Entidad financiadora: Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. Plan Nacional I+D 2019.
Notes
1 Elsaesser, European Cinema: Face to Face to Hollywood.
2 Guback, “Cultural Identity and Film in the European Economic Community.”
3 Dyer and Ginette, Popular European Cinema; Hainsworth et al., Border Crossing and Film in Ireland, Britain and Europe; Everett, European Identity in Cinema; Finney, The State of European Cinema; De Grazia, “European Cinema and the Idea of Europe, 1925–95”; Forbes and Street. European Cinema: An Introductio; Wayne, The Politics of Contemporary European Cinema; Jäckel, European Film Industries; Elsaesser, European Cinema: Face to Face to Hollywood; Harrod et al., The Europeanness of European Cinema, to name a few.
4 Hill, “The Future of European Cinema,” 53.
5 For example, RTL owns 18,65% of Atresmedia. See here: https://www.atresmediacorporacion.com/en/shareholders-investors/the-share/shareholder-structure/
6 Bergfelder, “Popular European Cinema in the 2000s.”
7 We understand national cinema as an unstable category by definition—that is, a complex set of competing local, national and international forces (Higson, “The Concept of National Cinema” and Higson, “National Cinemas, International Markets, Cross-Cultural Identities.”).
8 Elsaesser, European Cinema: Face to Face to Hollywood, 71.
9 See Cinema Republic’s mission statement here: <http://www.cinemarepublic.es/company.html> Accessed June 1 2020.
10 See Globalgate’s website: <https://www.globalgate.world> Accessed June 1 2020.
11 Fernández Labayen and Martín Moran, “Remakes transnacionales,” 71.
12 Mazdon, Encore Hollywood.
13 Fernández Labayen and Martín Morán, “Manufacturing Proximity through Film Remakes.”
14 Unlike Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, Benvenuti al Sud did not manage to crossover to other territories. It grossed a whopping $43 million in Italy, but it had limited international distribution in the neighborhood markets, performing poorly except in Spain: Spain ($2 million), Portugal ($80,000) Germany ($500,000), France ($140,000), Belgium ($1,600) and Austria ($46,000) (Box Office Mojo).
15 Under Ghislain Barrois and Álvaro Agustí’s management, Telecinco Cinema has become one of the main producers or co-producers of commercial hits both in Spain and in international markets with films such as Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006), The Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2007) or The Impossible (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2012), among others. Gonzalo Salazar Simpson has backed critically acclaimed and commercial successful Spanish films such as No Rest for the Wicked (Enrique Urbizu, 2011) or The Author (Manuel Martín Cuenca, 2017). Koldo Zuazua has a diversified strategy that moves from commercial films – the comedies Cuerpo de élite (Joaquín Mazón, 2016) or Embarazados (Juana Macías, 2016)—to high profile art cinema films—Handia (Jon Garaño, Aitor Arregi Galdós, 2017) or Lo que arde (Oliver Laxe, 2019).
16 According to official data from the ICAA, Padre no hay más que uno earned 13.6 million euros and had 2.4 million spectators.
17 According to official data from the ICAA, the film earned 10.4 million euros and had 1.8 million spectators.
18 10 giorni con babbo Natale was scheduled for a Christmas release in Italy. Due to the COVID pandemic, it went directly to Amazon Prime Video.
19 L’auberge espagnol made more than half of its box-office total in France. Additionally, it only earned a significant amount in Spain, 6 million, the country where the action is set (Data from Box Office Mojo). Similarly, Merry Christmas only gathered a significant number of spectators in France (Data from Box Office Mojo). Finally, One day in Europe, a multilingual films set in four European cities—Istanbul, Santiago de Compostela, Berlin and Moscow—in which 7 different languages are spoken had poor results everywhere, with only 7,000 spectators in Spain, for example (Data from ICAA).
20 According to the ICAA, the American Pie franchise was quite successful in the Spanish market. The first installment of the series, American Pie (Paul and Chris Weitz, 1999) made 6 million euros and was seen by 1.5 million viewers; American Pie 2 (James B. Rogers, 2001) grossed 8,5 million euros and reached 2 million viewers; finally, American Weeding (Jesse Dylan, 2003) was a bit of a flop compared to their precedents, since it obtained 750,000 euros and had 1,600,000 spectators; Fernández Meneses, “New Modes of Cinematic Production in Contemporary Spanish Cinema.”
21 Taquilla España, ‘Películas españolas más taquilleras de todos los tiempos’, <http://www.taquillaespana.es/estadisticas/peliculas-espanolas-mas-taquilleras-detodos-los-tiempos/>, Accessed 9 June 2020.
22 Taquilla España, ‘Películas más taquilleras de todos los tiempos’, Taquilla España, <https://www.taquillaespana.es/estadisticas/peliculas-mas-taquilleras-de-todos-los-tiempos-en-espana/> Accessed 9 June 2020.
23 Jordan and Morgan-Tomasunas, Contemporary Spanish Cinema; Monterde, “Panorama desde el siglo XXI”; Triana-Toribio. Spanish National Cinema; Cerdán and Pena, “Variaciones sobre la incertidumbre (1984–2000)”; Sánchez Noriega, “Génesis de la Crisis, Nuevos Públicos y Cineastas”; Rodríguez Ortega, “The Return of Genre in 1990s Spanish Cinema.”
24 Airbag had 2.2 million spectators and made 7.2 million euros in box-office receipts; Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley (Santiago Segura, 1997) had 3 million spectators and earned 10.9 million euros.
25 Fecé and Esquirol, “Un freak en el parque de atracciones.”
26 Álvarez Monzoncillo and López Villanueva. “La virtual recuperación del cine español”; Gubern, ‘¿Por qué no gusta el cine español?; Benet, El cine español.
27 ‘Telecinco Cinema lidera por cuarto años la cuota del mercado nacional de cine en salas’, Panorama Audiovisual, <https://www.panoramaaudiovisual.com/2018/01/22/telecinco-cinema-cuota-mercado-cine/> Accessed May 15 2020.
28 Globo Media had produced the most successful popular television series of the 1990s and 2000s, such as Médico de familia (1995–1999), Periodistas (1997–2002), Compañeros (1998–2002), 7 vidas (1998–2006), Los Serrano (2003–2008), Aída (2005–2014), Los hombres de Paco (2005–2010), El internado (2007–2010) or Águila roja (2009–2016), among others.
29 Faulkner et al. “Cinema, Popular Entertainment, Literature, and Television.”
30 American Pie is a writer-led franchise insofar as the films have different directors and producers. Their common elements are their scriptwriter and creator, Adam Herz, and the recurrent cast: Jason Biggs, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Chris Klein, Seann William Scott and Eddie Kaye Thomas.
31 Fernández Meneses, and Rodríguez Ortega, Cine y cultura popular en Los 90.
32 Data from Box Office Mojo: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl1481082113/weekend/ Accessed May 22, 2020.
33 The impact of the film was such that during the first two months of its theatrical release half of the population of the department Nord-Pas de Calais, where the film is set, and a third of the French population, saw it. See R. F., French Comedy on Screen; Harrod and Powrie, “New Directions in Contemporary French Comedies.”
34 Data from Box Office Mojo: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl2866185217/weekend/ Accessed May 15, 2020. Some critics have pointed out the fact that the main merit of Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis is its capacity to simultaneously appeal to a sense of national belonging and inviting a universal idea of shared identity; hence, its success beyond France (Harrod 2008). However, one should not forget the strength of the French national film industry, especially in relation to the precariousness of others, even in large European countries like Italy or Spain.
35 This mirroring practices are not exclusively to cinema. A similar trend can be found in mirrored television series such as the Danish-Swedish crime series Bron/Broen (2011–2018, SVT1, DR1), which later became the French-British The Tunnel (2013–2018, Canal +, Sky Atlantic) -remade in the United States as The Bridge (2013–2014, FX)- or more recently the crime series Criminal, launched simultaneously in Netflix in September 2019 and set in four different European countries: France, Germany, Spain and the UK. The series was devised by show runners George Kay and Jim Field Smith, and produced by their company Idiotlamp Productions. Although the show runners are based in the UK, each of the local three-part series is written and performed in different countries by native actors.
36 Stone and Rodríguez. Basque cinema; Rodríguez, “8 apellidos catalanes.”
37 Zunzunegui, “La taquilla es Para mí,” 81.
38 Bermúdez de Castro, “Re-escritura discursiva del terrorismo a través del cine español contemporáneo.”
39 Buse and Triana-Toribio, “Ocho Apellidos Vascos and the Comedy of Minor Differences,” 234.
40 Moine, “Stereotypes of Class, Ethnicity and Gender in Contemporary French Popular Comedy.”
41 Martínez-Expósito, Alfredo, ‘Elements of place and nation branding in Ocho apellidos vascos (2014)’, 194–195.
42 Fernández Meneses, and Rodríguez Ortega, Cine y cultura popular en Los 90.
43 Joseba Gabilondo goes a step further affirming that Ocho apellidos vascos is unprecedented, since it is the first version of the Spanish foundational fiction, or españolada, in which the Basque trace, now turned female, is deployed to signify a successful foundation. Nevertheless, this foundation maintains its violent association with Basque politics; Gabilondo, “Populism, Postimperialism, and the Politics of Affect in Spain.”
44 Data from Box Office Mojo: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/releasegroup/gr3100070405/ Accessed May 22 2020.
45 See note 44 above.
46 Finney, The State of European Cinema; Jäckel, European Film Industries; Rivi, European Cinema after 1989.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jara Fernández Meneses
Jara Fernández Meneses earned her Phd from the University of Kent (UK). Her research focuses on the political economy of contemporary European cinema. She has published in the peer-reviewed journals Secuencias. Revista de Historia del Cine, Film Studies, Studies in European Cinemas, New Cinemas. Journal of Contemporary Film, Hispanic Research Journal and International Journal of Cultural Policy, as well as several chapters in edited books for the San Sebastián International Film Festival, Las Palmas International Film Festival, Seminci. Valladolid International Film Festival, Nosferatu, Peter Lang and Tirant Lo Blanch. She is a member of the editorial board of the Film Section of Modern Languages Open. She is currently working as an associated lecturer at the University Carlos III in Madrid. She conducts her current research in two international research groups: TECMERIN (Televisión-cine: memoria, representación e industria) of the University Carlos III of Madrid and “DeVisiones. Discursos, genealogías y prácticas de creación visual contemporánea” of the University Autónoma of Madrid.
Vicente Rodríguez Ortega
Vicente Rodríguez Ortega is Senior Lecturer at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. He has published articles in Television & New Media, New Media & Society, Studies in European Cinemas, NECSUS and Journal of Spanish, Cultural Studies, among others, and over twenty book chapters. He is the co-editor of Contemporary Spanish Cinema & Genre and the author of La ciudad global en el cine contemporáneo: una perspectiva transnacional. His interests include digital technologies and representation, contemporary Spanish media and film genres. He is member of the research group TECMERIN (Televisión-cine: memoria, representaci on e industria) and editor of Tecmerin: Journal of Audiovisual Essays.