The Global Export of Risk: Finance and the Film Business

Abstract

This article examines the nature of risk and the limits of risk mitigation in the foreign financing of the US film business. The innovations and motivations through which foreign financial institutions have underwritten the most fundamental risk of the Hollywood model – the high costs of production – are discussed through several cases studies. These meetings of finance and the film business have produced monumental vestiges of corporate bankruptcy, market collapse and the inevitable redistribution of debt. Who paid? The public – and not only by their consumption of US film entertainment and merchandising. Foreign money has supported a portion of the substantial costs of failure created by the big-budget Hollywood production model. This global export of risk has often been placed upon the unknowing tax-payer or insurance-holder following the collapse of different financial institutions. Consequently, the ultimate importance behind the story of finance and the film business lies in its contribution to a broader evaluation about the sources of risk and the limits of risk mitigation in contemporary capitalism.