Playing films across borders: 'Agora'

By Sarah Sluis

We live in a global village, where worldwide distribution of Hollywood blockbusters is standard practice. But many films don't play well overseas, and some never get picked up to play across borders.

One such example is Agora, a historical epic. It was passed over for domestic distribution at Cannes, where it appears price was one of the main issues--though concerns about length led to filmmakers chopping 21 minutes from the film, which previously ran almost two and a half hours.

While the movie was made in English, it had its box-office debut in Spain last weekend, where director Alejandro Amenbar (Abre los Ojos, The Others, The Sea Inside) is famous. It earned $7.9 million in three days, and $17 million through Tuesday, making it Spain's top opening of the year (It beat Ice Age 3!). U.S. distribution is back on the table, and other foreign buyers, who normally would wait for a U.S. pickup, are interested solely because of its performance in Spain.

As for the film itself? The trailer is sure to point out all the by-the-book elements of a historical epic: angry mobs, period costumes and sets, impassioned speeches made to leaders who will go on to make terrible decisions painfully apparent to the modern audience. The movie's epoch, the fall of the Roman Empire, includes a high-drama invasion of Alexandria. But most intriguing is the movie's heroine, Hypatia (Rachel Weisz), an astronomer, teacher, and mathematician who is killed by newly empowered Christians.

The movie was made for $70 million, a pricy sum when you're betting on foreign sales. And while the trailer didn't wow me, I think Amenbar is a talented director who seems quite capable of handling an historical epic. But until this film gets picked up, American audiences will have to wait to see for themselves.