Try as we might to steer you in the direction of quality films, it is all too common that the dumbest titles make all the money the box office has to offer. Just look at the past two weekends: despite only a third of critics actually liking the movies, both Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and The Hangover Part II opened at number one and both have already made more than $100 million. The truth is that it often doesn't pay to appeal to anyone above the lowest common denominator, and, unfortunately, that idea has apparently spread to Britain.
Speaking with Sky News, James McAvoy, who stars in the upcoming X-Men: First Class, revealed that it's common for British filmmakers to dumb down their movies to better appeal to American audiences, as they are afraid that they won't understand them otherwise. The actor believes, however, that nobody actually benefits from this idea. "We dumb our movies down because we want Americans to understand them," McAvoy said. "Then Americans watch them and go, 'This is a really unsophisticated dumbed down movie. Why would we buy this? Why do we like this? We don't.' So it's like we're patronising them and short changing ourselves." And the irony of it all? "Do we make movies just for America?," asked McAvoy. "Yeah, of course we do. We make loads of movies that try and hit in America, and yet it's never the ones that were aimed at America that do well."
Dear Britain: many of our beloved citizens have turned people like Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg into multimillionaires. We do not need your help populating the art form known as film with more bad movies. I implore you, please just try your hardest to make the best films that you can.
