France subsidizes and protects its media. Is this a bad thing? Taking two American films as a guide, I think the answer is, “not in the way you might have thought”.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon, opened concurrently in France and in the USA. (It opened wide in France on Wednesday, and in the USA on Friday.) In its opening week in the US, the picture took in $142.8 million at the box office. In France, the picture was seen by 2,318,559 moviegoers in its first week. (American statistics look at cash receipts; French statistics look at the number of tickets sold.)

On both sides of the Atlantic, New Moon is a tremendous success. The story I’m eager to hear is how the producers (or distributors) built up so much interest to swarm theaters on opening day. I suspect this story will read as a case study for a “flatter Earth”.

In France, the first Twilight picture sold 2,772,499 tickets in its entire theatrical release; a respectable showing, but a world part from the New Moon wave. Something happened to turn a success into a social phenomenon.

Also in France, I suspect that critics have been too hasty to brand the interest in the picture as the exclusive preserve of female teens. I find that awareness of the picture nears 100%, and moviegoers include males and females of all ages.

New Moon remains more an exception than the rule. The French market is heavily regulated, with all sorts of exhibition windows written into law. Video can follow theatrical release by 4 months. But a pay TV window opens 10 months after theatrical release, and free TV only 22 months after theatrical release. Free VOD is tolerated only 4 years after theatrical release.

The observant reader will have noted that the key date is the French theatrical release. Here arises a huge problem: the French theatrical release often trails the US (or other home market release) by a long time.

To demonstrate this point, I picked a random film doing well in American theatrical release: “Couples Retreat”, a comedy with Vince Vaughn. This picture opened in the US on October 9. It opened in the UK on October 14. But it hasn’t opened in France yet. It won’t, until March 10, 2010. What does the French distributor gain from such a delay?

For this picture, there’s no compelling reason to synchronize the US and French releases. But all sorts of perverse effects follow from the French delay: I’ll be able to watch this picture on an airplane before I can see it in a theater in France; the American DVD will be released (and promoted) well before the French version; and French VOD viewers will be tempted to access this picture from the US, simply because the French version will not be on the market.