As independent studios around the globe seek new ways to compete against Hollywood blockbusters, some are joining forces to remake each others' most successful films in the increasingly lucrative international market.

Nine distributors world-wide led by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., the midsize Hollywood studio best known for "The Hunger Games," have agreed to give each other right of first refusal to remake each others' movies in their respective countries.

The joint venture, called GlobalGate, launched recently and is run by three veteran international movie executives based in Los Angeles. The participating distributors will share completed movies, screenplays and other material with each other directly and via an online database. Companies can then choose projects to remake in their countries, with adapted versions of the scripts and new casts and crew.

Independent studios taking part in GlobalGate hope that by drawing from a larger pool of source material, they'll be able to produce movies with higher box-office earnings.

"The problem with Turkish production is we have a lack of quality scripts," said Kemal Kaplanoglu, managing partner of Turkish distributor the Moments. "Now maybe we can bring these original ideas from other countries to be remade here."

International box office has grown 21% during the past five years to $27.2 billion, while U.S. and Canadian receipts have increased 9% to $11.1 billion.

Hollywood increasingly is crafting its big-budget films to appeal to global audiences. But studios, such as 21st Century Fox's Twentieth Century Fox and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., also are producing local-language movies in foreign countries never intended for American release. (21st Century Fox and News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, were until mid-2013 part of the same company.)

Many of those are remakes of U.S. hits. Warner, for example, is recreating its comedies "Miss Congeniality" and "Blended" through a production venture in China.

Such efforts are more difficult for smaller studios without global operations. "This allows Lions Gate and the other partners to get into local content," said Paul Presburger, who co-founded GlobalGate with William Pfeiffer and Clifford Werber

Mr. Presburger also runs Pantelion Films, a joint venture between Lions Gate and Mexico's Grupo Televisa that makes original Spanish-language movies. Its biggest hit, "Instructions Not Included," is being remade in France. Lions Gate is developing an English-language version with an African-American cast.

Several of the GlobalGate distributors said they are in the early stages of developing projects through the venture, which aims to make 30 movies during the next three years with budgets between $2 million and $12 million.

GlobalGate is raising money from partners including Lions Gate and private-equity funds that it will use to finance half of the production budgets of remakes. It would then share in the profits of those films.

"This would be too expensive to do without them co-producing," said Patrick Vandenbosch, chief executive of Belgian distributor Belga Films.

Many executives at studios involved in GlobalGate said they are particularly interested in remaking comedies, as humor often needs to be tweaked to appeal to audiences in different cultures.

"Drama is the same all over the world, but comedy is different in every country," said Fernando Perez Gavilan, chief executive of the Televisa-owned Mexican distributor VideoCine.

With only nine participants so far, including ones in France, Germany, South Korea and Japan, GlobalGate will need to grow. China, which accounted for 18% of global box office last year, is noticeably absent.

Mr. Pfeiffer, who previously ran several entertainment ventures in Asia, said that with government regulations and the leading distributors changing rapidly in the world's No. 2 movie market, GlobalGate was wary of committing to a partner in China for now.

However, he said he hopes to find collaborators in other developing markets such as Russia, Brazil and Argentina, as well as more nascent ones such as Vietnam. "There's almost no territory too small," he said.

Write to Ben Fritz at ben.fritz@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 02, 2016 12:35 ET (16:35 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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