An investigation of the impact of Black male and female actors on US movies’ box-office across countries

Abstract

Globalization has resulted in an environment in which foreign markets constitute a large portion of new product sales. This is particularly the case in the movie industry. The movie industry is also pressured to increase the representation of ethnic minorities, especially in casting choices. We investigate how Black (1) male and (2) female actors affect the country-level international box-office of 788 US movies released in 2012–2019. The results show that Black male (female) actors increase (decrease) a movie’s box-office in a given country. Extending developments in the literature on intergroup contact, we examine how these effects are moderated by (a) actors’ star power, (b) the number of releases prior to release in the country, (c) the time-lag between worldwide release and release in the country, and (d) whether the country is emerging (vs. developed).