Euro-Million Mainstream Films: Large Audiences, Limited Diversity or Insights

Abstract

This chapter explores which mainstream European films travelled well during the early-2000s, focusing on how such films represented Europe, who they appealed to, and why. Between 2005 and 2015, there were 89 mainstream European films that attracted at least 1 million cinemagoers across Europe outside their country-of-origin. About half were action-adventures, such as Taken or Skyfall, that particularly appealed to young men due to their use of familiar genre conventions, franchises, and stars. The rest were family films, such as Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia or Paddington, that attracted children and their parents likewise due to their use of well-known characters from children’s books and TV shows. Both also benefitted from widespread promotion and distribution thanks to the involvement of major US studios (action-adventures) or European mini-majors with MEDIA support (family films). Most were English-language films produced in Britain or France, with only a few originating from smaller Western European countries and none from Eastern Europe. Many were seen as “American” or fantasy films with no discernible cultural identity. Even when European characters or settings were depicted, they were often portrayed through idealised, stereotypical, or Europhobic imagery. They therefore offered limited insights into the lives of other Europeans.