David Thomson, Chris: I looked up a few movies on the Box Office Mojo database and I did find that several movies with anti-American themes collected more revenue in foreign markets than in the USA. “Redacted” made 92% of its revenue overseas; “Rendition”, 64%; “In the Valley of Elah”, 77%; “Lions for Lambs”, 76%; “Bowling for Columbine”, 63%; “Fahrenheit 9/11″, 46%; “JFK”, 66%.
Foreign sales outweighing domestic sales does not, of course, make a movie profitable any more than the opposite would. A director who wants to “make a statement” or “send a message” by portraying the Iraq War as one big Abu Ghraib might still fail to sell a profitable number of tickets and DVD’s to foreigners more interested in seeing Steven Seagal beat the daylights out of somebody and seeing as much of Sharon Stone’s skin as possible.
