With Vivendi Deal, France May Open Its Borders to Hollywood

To hear Vivendi Chairman Jean-Marie Messier talk, the days are numbered for the old guard of xenophobic French cultural gendarmes. Bashing Hollywood and pushing to restrict the U.S. film industry’s influence there are passe.

“Don’t tell us about all the French archaic world,” Messier said during an interview in Los Angeles last week. “This is gone. There is a new generation of businessmen in France which are not exactly the traditional profile of the archaic guys speaking only French, thinking that French culture is the most powerful in the world.

“Please. France is moving ahead,” Messier said.

As the soon-to-be owner of Universal Studios, which Vivendi will acquire as part of its $34-billion purchase of Seagram Co., Messier has plenty of reason to push for change. France’s passion for tying Hollywood’s hands can only hurt the French utility and telecommunication giant as it strives to be a global media player.

But is he being realistic?

This is, after all, the day of Jose Bove. The sheep farmer of Millau has become a French folk hero for trashing a local McDonald’s construction site. Bove and thousands of supporters made the fast-food chain a symbol of American trade “hegemony” and the evils of globalization. These are the same attitudes Hollywood faces when selling films and television programs there.

France is a country in which a hugely successful movie such as Universal’s “Jurassic Park” is viewed as a dangerous assault on an important French industry precisely because French audiences loved the film and ignored the home-grown product.

*

This is a place where 60% of what is shown on TV has to be European and 40% must be French. You can’t see a Universal film such as “Nutty Professor” on television on a Wednesday night, a Friday night, all day Saturday or Sunday before 8:30 p.m. because, Mon Dieu, people might not go to the movie theaters to watch “Meilleur Jeune Espoir.”

Hollywood’s lobbyists are still smarting from the experience in 1993 when they were outflanked by European, largely French, forces in talks to ease trade barriers. France’s community of filmmakers continues to carry plenty of clout that could counter the new generation of Messiers who think more globally.

The irony is that Hollywood has long been a global business knee-deep in foreign ownership, with three of the six major studios now owned by non-U.S. corporations.

It’s increasingly euros, yen, Albanian leks or whatever that get movies made, not to mention help to pay Malibu mortgages and tuition at Crossroads. The current movie “The Patriot” was financed and released by a Japanese company (Sony), stars two Australians (Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger) and is directed by a German (Roland Emmerich). All for a movie about the American Revolution.

What gets overlooked when Hollywood gets caught in the cross-fire of cultural wars is the reality that the business never met a currency it didn’t like, which is why Vivendi will be welcomed with open arms as long as its checkbook remains open. Indeed, on Thursday manager Michael Ovitz announced a movie production deal with Canal Plus, the giant pay-TV company Vivendi will fold into the mix when it acquires Universal and parent Seagram.

Such cross-pollination of foreign money and U.S. film interests is why French paranoia about Hollywood being a monolithic cultural steamroller is ridiculous to begin with, and looks even more ludicrous with a French company about to take over a studio.

*

Motion Picture Assn. of America President Jack Valenti calls Vivendi’s prospective ownership “a very magnificent thing that is happening” because it drives home the point that entertainment should know no borders, whether it’s in France, China or anywhere else.

“This is not a parochial business. This is a worldwide, global business. Therefore, borders and nationalities are of diminishing importance,” Valenti says.

Valenti notes that in recent years protectionist tensions have eased, attributable in part to a stronger French economy that has taken off some of the pressures. But he also acknowledges such anti-Hollywood sentiments can swing back and forth like a pendulum.

Messier’s comments aside, even having a French studio owner might for now seem comforting but is no guarantee against future tensions. In a place where the Golden Arches are a symbol of American cultural evils, the spinning globe in Universal’s logo might still seem too American.

The Dry Cleaning Allowance: In Hollywood, $15 million doesn’t go very far. It won’t get you Mel or Julia. It might get you a few good digital waves like the ones in “The Perfect Storm,” or maybe even decent catering on location for a Jerry Bruckheimer movie.

Which is why it’s almost laughable that politicians, labor leaders, state bureaucrats and studio lobbyists have been tripping over themselves to laud Gov. Gray Davis and state legislators for including a total of $15 million annually in the state budget for three years to keep film and TV productions from shooting in Canada and other areas to save money.

It’s a pittance that won’t come close to helping lure back films such as “Mission to Mars” or “The Matrix,” each of which by themselves were tens of millions of dollars cheaper because they were shot outside of the U.S. Until the U.S. dollar weakens against Canadian and Australian currencies, the huge cost gap will remain. Davis could have saved the state the pocket change.