Chapter 100 Question ○90

Why are Australian films so successful in the US? What do the following films have in common? "Blood Burning City", "Picnic on the Hanging Rock", "The Last Wave", "Heroes of the Dancing Kingdom", "Desert Demon", "My Bright Life", "Charge", "Galipoli", " Moulin Rouge, Ladies and Gentlemen, Love Is Colorless, Thelma & Louise, Dangerous Times, Muriel's Wedding, Shining, Crocodile Dundee etc. Each of the aforementioned films is an Australian production, and each has attracted large, discerning American audiences.Most of these films were shot on extremely limited budgets.Taken as a whole, they are much more successful than the average American film, which, after all, has a much bigger budget.Why have Australian films been so successful in the US?

Some have speculated that Australian culture encourages creative labor more than American culture.But there is a simpler explanation worth considering that Australian films released in the US are not representative of the average of all recent Australian films. It is much more expensive to release a film in the US market than in other markets.The advertising budget alone often exceeds tens of millions of dollars.Movie executives are willing to invest so much money only if a film has the potential to reach a large audience.People's decision whether to watch a movie is influenced by many factors.A big star or a famous director can attract many people to pay for tickets.Sequels to hit movies have a ready audience.Positive reviews obviously helped, too.But probably the most important point is that people go to the movies because of word of mouth.

When the Australian films mentioned at the beginning of this article first came to the United States, most American audiences had never heard of the directors and actors involved (although some, such as Peter Weir and Mel Gibson, have since become household names).And none of these films are sequels to any hit flick. To succeed in the United States, they can only rely on their own good quality, winning applause from the audience and positive word-of-mouth evaluation.Therefore, American audiences feel that the average standard of Australian movies is so high, just because only the best Australian movies can successfully enter the American market.

Decision makers don't have enough information, and that's it; what's more, the information that's available is often not the information that's available.According to the available information, in some occasions, the product quality is higher than it appears, while in other occasions, the quality is lower than it appears.But there are other times when available information creates a systematically misleading picture.In the following two examples, decision makers can mostly benefit by being aware of the tendency of established biases.