Cultural discount of cinematic achievement: the academy awards and U.S. movies’ East Asian box office

Abstract

This study uses the Academy Awards as a window to look into how cultural differences influence the reception of U.S. movies in East Asia. Following the recent research on the concept of cultural discount and the argument that the Academy Awards are indicators of cinematic qualities and achievement, the research questions focus on whether different types of cinematic qualities and achievement would be discounted by cultural differences to different extents. More specifically, a distinction between drama and non-drama awards is made, and it is argued that the cinematic qualities and achievement indicated by the drama awards are likely to be relatively more culturally specific and hence more likely to be discounted by cultural differences. The empirical analysis examines the box office performance of 585 U.S. movies from 2002 to 2007 in nine East Asian markets. It shows that non-drama awards relate positively to box office receipts, but drama awards relate negatively to box office receipts. Moreover, the negative relationship between drama awards and box office receipts is stronger in countries more culturally distant from the U.S. The findings are therefore highly supportive to the conceptual arguments. Other implications of the findings are also discussed.