Submitted by Steven L., Oct 25, 2007 13:49

Michael Fumento claims: "You can't argue that Hollywood's only motivation in bashing anti-terrorist efforts is money. By the end of its opening weekend, 'Rendition' was clearly already a flop."

It was only a flop in America. Not necessarily elsewhere.
Hollywood makes movies for money--but these days, unlike during World War II, they can make lots of money outside the United States.

The bulk of Hollywood movie revenue now comes from overseas showings. As the world has gotten more industrialized and more affluent, demand for movies in theaters has risen--while here in America, demand for movies in theaters is declining due to the advent of home entertainment centers and DVDs.

And Hollywood is responding to that large, anti-American foreign market.

A good case in point is the anti-Christian, pro-Muslim movie "Kingdom of Heaven." Depicting the Crusades as a fight between Christian bad guys and Muslim good guys, the movie bombed here in America--but it was playing to packed houses in the Muslim oil states of the Middle East.

Conversely, any movie that is perceived as too pro-American invariably gets bad reviews from folks in foreign countries, hurting revenue there. Check the reviews of the few pro-American movies (like "Independence Day") on www.imdb.com and you'll see this disparity between how Americans perceive those movies and how foreigners perceive them.

Finally, note that Hollywood is often at the edge of popular opinion, but they don't create it. Back in the early 1980's, when Reagan and conservative ideas were at the height of their popularity, Hollywood had a whole spate of pro-American movies, including "Top Gun," "Uncommon Valor," the Rambo movies, etc.

Today, polls show that some 70% of Americans now believe the Iraq War was not worth fighting. They didn't get that lesson from the movies, since the movies hadn't been produced yet. They got that lesson from the news.

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