ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how audience research can enhance our understanding of World Cinema. It focuses in particular on the insights that can be drawn from box-office figures, audience surveys and focus groups. Despite this shift in the way World Cinema is defined, much research in the field remains focused on the critical analysis of film texts and the contexts in which they are produced. Drawing on box-office figures, audience surveys and focus groups, the chapter examines how many Europeans actually watch films from other parts of the world, and how they are interpreted by audiences in different European countries. Admissions or box-office figures provide an indication of how many people actually watch a particular film or type of film in the cinema based on ticket sales. Admissions for US films tend to be highest in small countries with a weak national film industry and lowest in large countries where the domestic film industry is strong.
