Friday 13. August was the Norwegian premiere of Harald Zwart's star-studded film The Karate Kid. Welcome to a globalized Hollywood!
(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Film industry. The film, which is a recycled version of John G. Avildsen's 1984 original (many of whom remember Mr. Miyagi's wisdom words "wax on, wax off"), is already on track to become the most popular on director Harald Zwart's resume. According to the BoxOfficeMojo.com website, until the 5th of August, the film had recorded close to NOK 1,6 billion worldwide and thanked several of this summer's big movie hits.
The Karate Kid, which premieres in Norway on 13 August, is one of many examples of Hollywood not just being a place in the United States – it is also an industry with branches all over the world. The film was shot in China and distributed by Columbia Pictures, which since 1989 has been owned by Japanese Sony. The plot revolves around kung fu (contrary to the title's nod to Japanese martial arts), which originated in the Chinese Xia dynasty 4000 years ago, and is used as a means of brotherhood between cultures against evil forces.
The main characters are American Jaden Smith (son of producer and actor Will Smith) and Chinese Jackie Chan, who are all with Zwart on the promotional tour where the places to visit include Los Angeles, London, Tokyo – and Fredrikstad, Zwart's hometown!
The road to Fredrikstad
Cinema has a unique place in modern cultural life and has a long history as a global form of entertainment. Long before the Dutch-born Zwart was conceived by his Dutch father and Norwegian mother, the cinema technology was put into mass production by the French company Lumière in the 1890s. According to the book The Great Tivoli of 1967 by author Sigurd Evensmo, the company sent representatives "not only to major cities across Europe, but also to the United States, South America, India, Japan and Australia". The French were also active on the production side. In 1908, the film production company Pathé Frères sold twice as many films in the United States as all the other American companies combined.
After World War II, Hollywood branched out beyond US borders. Encouraged by the financial success of 1970s blockbusters such as Shark Summer and Star Wars, Hollywood increasingly served as a business invitation to industry-unrelated investors. For example, the French bank Crédit Lyonnais, originally owned by the French state, became one of the main sources of funding for 1980s blockbusters such as Platoon and Dancer with Wolves.
Over the past 20 years, up to 70 percent of investments in Hollywood have been foreign, of which large shares have come from companies based in Asia. In 2009, the Indian media giant Reliance invested $ 825 million in DreamWorks, the company behind the Shrek movies.
This is an excerpt. Read more in Ny Tid no. 27, which is available here .
