The general wisdom--or fervent hope--of 1999 seemed to be that the phenomenal successes of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996) and John Madden's romantic comedy Shakespeare in Love (1998) would enhance audience interest in the works of the playwright. In May 1999, Fox Searchlight, the distributors of Hoffman's A Midsummer Night's Dream, were reported to be targeting 'mature females' in its initial US theatrical release, hoping that their own 'romantic comedy' would benefit from that audience's lack of interest in the much-hyped Star Wars 'prequel'. What is always hoped for though is the all-important shift from one section of the market to another, the crossover that can move a Shakespeare film out of the 'niche' or (worse) art-house sector. If a project has cost relatively little to produce (as has been the case with most Shakespeare films) but turns out to have the broad appeal that justifies increased distribution, the investors have been blessed with good fortune. Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, with its youth appeal and Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo, must have seemed like a winner from an early stage. Although its budget was a relatively modest $14.5m., it was given the 'wide' opening regularly employed with much bigger films: the distributors opened it on 1,276 screens in the USA, grossing over $11m. in the first weekend. (In the same season Branagh's Hamlet opened on three screens initially, and made only $148,000 in its first weekend, although more cinemas showed it and more money was made in subsequent weeks.) If the money spent on a film has been commensurate with even a modest degree of box-office success--over $10m., say--and it still remains stubbornly in its niche, no one will be made rich by it, but nor will they be surprised. The sums quoted above should be put in the perspective of the really big earners and spenders: setting aside really 'high concept' and 'summer blockbuster' films, a popular comedy might reach nine figures on its first release (Mrs Doubtfire, $219,195,051) and an earnest, 'quality' drama can edge into the same league (Schindler's List, $96,060,353). Revenue from video rentals and sales may provide some comfort --Shakespeare films have a long shelf-life at least in the educational market--but the better part of these profits is often mortgaged in advance to pay for the making of a low-to-middle budget film.

	Thinking Point
	To what extent can box office numbers be considered a fair reflection of the success of a film?

Some unusual angle on the material, and attractive or quirky casting--usually combining Hollywood stars with actors of recognised 'classical' theatre background--seem indispensable for an acceptable degree of success with Shakespeare in the popular cinema. But modest budgets do bring with them a welcome freedom from the industry's grosser absurdities and constraints. As one American actor remarked to me while working on a Shakespeare film, 'It's nice to know that no one in an office somewhere is going to say, "Hey, this is boring. Let's blow up a building"'. At the same time, these films (like any others) are likely to be dependent on international funding, and consequently answerable to the suggestions, if not diktats, of producers with an eye on the US market. The 'independent' distributors in Hollywood, such as Miramax, invest mainly in relatively low-budget films, often made outside the USA. The movies are typified by their 'attention to theme, character relationships and social relevance' and targeted at a market somewhere between the art-house and the 'mainstream'. They set themselves apart from the simplifications and marketing orientation of the 'high concept' film (Definition of the independents' policy and films is taken from Justin Wyatt, High Concept. Movies and Marketing in Hollywood, 1994, p. 96). Release on video provides one element of a film's revenue, but it is the initial theatrical release in the USA--the attraction of a large cinema-going audience, often on the first weekend--that is usually taken as indicative of a film's financial success. The situation is not necessarily or indeed usually one of conflict between writers or directors and dollar-hungry 'suits': the makers of films want to have their work seen by as many people as possible, and the producers may have artistically valid suggestions to make. However, given William Goldmann's adage that in Hollywood 'NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING' (Adventures in the Screen Trade. A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting, 1983, p. 38), it is really one informed guess that is being pitted against another. Compromise in the direction of sentimentality (especially in the ending) and characterisation (only certain kinds of complexity being thought acceptable at a given time) can entail a film's being refashioned to an overall pattern known to find favour. 'Buddy' movies, tales of personal triumph over adversity and heart-warming celebrations of a vaguely defined sense of communality, are more likely than searching analysis of any kind.

Participation in the marketplace entails a degree of compromise with what the potential purchaser is known to want. Definitions of the viable commercial film have usually been in terms of character, story and duration: attractive, interesting people will encounter difficulties and overcome them, probably making allies and fending off adversaries, and take something less than two hours to do so. Although the gurus of mainstream screenplay-writing vary in their recommended strategies, there is general agreement that what sell best in the USA (and consequently in most markets worldwide) are stories containing ideas rather than ideas turned into stories. Shakespeare films--even of the tragedies--are not immune to the cruder Hollywood imperatives. The title character--a producer--in Robert Altman's satire The Player (1992) provides a list: 'Certain elements we need to market a film successfully... Suspense, laughter, violence, hope, heart, nudity, sex, happy endings--mainly happy endings'. In the academic study of Shakespeare happy endings, together with anything else that might smooth the path of the plays' characters, have long been out of favour. (So that Branagh's Much Ado, for example, consigns its characters to happiness more readily than most recent critical readings or stage productions of the play have done.) Moreover, dramatic 'character', constructed on a psychologising basis in the manner of Stanislavsky and his heirs, has been treated with suspicion as an unhistorical imposition from the popular theatre and cinema. Publicity statements about characters and their 'journey' through the play/film tend to be cast in terms of modern self-improvement literature. Michele Pfeiffer, for example, observes in a note to the script of Michael Hoffman's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999) that Titania's affair with Oberon is 'somewhat tempestuous', and that 'a relationship with Bottom is very liberating in its simplicity'--an analysis innocent (like the film itself) of the darker imaginings that have haunted academic criticism and many stage productions at least since 1964, when the English translation of Jan Kott’s Shakespeare our Contemporary was published (see Jay L. Halio, Shakespeare in Performance: A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1994, p. 55ff.). Even when the writer of a Shakespearean screenplay is not being threatened by the front office with the formulas of plot and characterisation prized by Hollywood and its leading players (both actors and producers), he or she is more likely to be constructing than deconstructing.

It is in advertising that the Shakespeare film is likely to present itself most stridently in terms of the broadest attractions. Publicists (over whom the director usually has limited influence) have often striven to depict Shakespearean films as products of a familiar--and therefore welcome--kind. Thus, the campaign book for the 1956 British release of Orson Welles's Othello includes these proposals for advertising headlines:

THE MIGHTY STORY OF THE TRAGIC MOOR

RECREATED BY ORSON WELLES IN ALL ITS SPLENDOUR!

THE STORY OF LOVE . . . OF ONE WHO LOVED NOT WISELY BUT TOO WELL!

SPECTACULAR DRAMA OF JEALOUSY . . . MURDER . . . RETRIBUTION!

POWERFUL . . . MAGNIFICENT . . . ELECTRIFYING . . . SPELLBINDER!

BRILLIANT . . . FABULOUS . . . DRAMATIC SENSATION

In a similar vein, and printing selected words from the reviews in extra large type, a flyer for the British release of Richard Loncraine and lan McKellan's Richard III in 1996 promised an 'EXCITING ... ADVENTUROUS ... THRILLER' (a description not far removed from its makers' aims).

The tactics adopted for an appeal to a more sophisticated audience are subtler. In 1935 the US campaign book for Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream offered a strategy 'designed exclusively for premiere engagements' suggesting ways in which the film could be turned into a social and cultural event: 'The exploitation of THE DREAM should follow the same unfailing Reinhardt formula. Get the best people interested. Socialites and cultural leaders gladly lend the prestige of their names to promote Reinhardt and Shakespeare'.

Cinema managers were urged to 'SELL ENTERTAINMENT by direct advertising and publicity. SELL CULTURE by under-cover propaganda, personal sales work and indirect and inferential advertising and publicity'. The British publicity office also made much of the star-power of the film and its lavish production values, and urged the headlining of Reinhardt and Shakespeare, 'the greatest money-names of the theatre'. This theatrical pedigree was duly emphasised in the advertising together with the listing of the stars and the usual disclosure of behind-the-scenes facts (Campaign books for Welles's Othello and the Reinhardt-Dieterle Midsummer Night's Dream at the Birmingham Shakespeare Library suggest that 'More than 600,000 yards of cellophane were used for the ballets; Titania's train required 90,000 yards of gossamer strands alone').

Similar material, with varying degrees of stridency, could be cited for most of the Shakespearean films. The sums invested are relatively small and, as with distribution, no great outlay is hazarded unless a film looks as though it might 'cross over'. These are films that it is hard to label as sequels (no one has yet attempted a Wars of the Roses sequence of feature films) or to advertise in the terms used for Lethal Weapon IV on its British release in 1998: 'The faces you love, the action you expect'. At different stages in its progress from preparation to studio floor, and through post-production to its audience, a film has to be presented to a succession of potential buyers: first to the major distributors, then by them to the distributors in different territories, who in turn must sell it to their own clients, the exhibitors. The promotional films used for this then give way to trailers for theatrical use, which are put together from available footage by editors and directors who have no connection with the original work. Direct reference is less likely to be made now than in the 1930s to the high cultural status of Shakespeare or of the period the film is set in. The identity of the principal actors and the scale of the production are usually the main selling points. Love interest (or sex) and action may be emphasised, and the film's director may even have to argue strongly for the exclusion of particular images or scenes that would take away the element of surprise when the movie itself is shown.