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Answerman - Why Are UK Releases Slower Than North American Releases?

It is fair to say that the love shown towards the BBFC is somewhat muted from local fans of niche content. Despite the fact that American markets are, in general, no less conservative than British ones, the MPAA's voluntary system has proven to be adequate for curtailing harmful effects on younger viewers. This suggests that a mandatory film board is somewhat of a historical relic.

MarshalBanana wrote:

Quote: Where an average US disc release might sell 10-15,000 units, a UK release might have trouble clearing 2,000. That is a alarming, it makes you wonder how they survive. Is it even making a profit or just breaking even. In terns if differences, I notice there seems to be more love for films in the UK market. Miss Hokusai and Giovanni's Island have both been released in a bigger way in the UK than the US, the later hasn't even got a US release yet, and the publisher for the former is going ahead with a release independent of Gkids. And there is the kickstarter for a western release of Mai Mia Miracle, and the fact that Anime Limited funded the dub for Cyborg 009.

Oh, man. You don't know how much I want a US company (hopefully FUNimation) to get the rights and release 'Giovanni's Island'.

This was largely due to the industry stepping in to self rate themselves, before the government decided to do so. It's the same reason we have the MPAA and Comics Code.

Zin5ki wrote:

It is fair to say that the love shown towards the BBFC is somewhat muted from local fans of niche content. Despite the fact that American markets are, in general, no less conservative than British ones, the MPAA's voluntary system has proven to be adequate for curtailing harmful effects on younger viewers. This suggests that a mandatory film board is somewhat of a historical relic.

The best thing is, despite their moral superiority of being a mandatory ratings board, they purposefully lower the age certification on stuff they know will sell well.
The most well-known examples I can think of are that the live-action Tomb Raider movie was rated 12, and Deadpool was rated 15 (No stranger to Deadpool, but I didn't expect that much on display for a 15-rated film )

The MPAA exists because the old Hays Code was causing Hollywood movies to have trouble competing with foreign films; there wasn't any government bothering causing them to do so. Both its and the ESRB's ratings are legally unenforceable on first amendment grounds. I'm not sure about the comics code, other than it was used to conveniently run competitors to DC and Marvel into the ground.

The BBFC have some interesting podcasts and pages explaining how the ratings system works in relation to certain genres and has in the past (usually on the anniversary of it's release or when a sequel is due out) gone into quite some detail about how and why they gave an older film a specific rating at the time, and how and why it's got a different one today.

It's fun reading the BBFC's reasoning vs what the likes of the papers were saying at the time, and learning about the sort of political/public pressure they may have been under (if my memory is working they mention a couple of times when they bucked pressure from the government because it was going against their agreed rules and guidelines).

At least one of their podcasts covered how they deal with anime and the differences with it compared to live action, from memory they mentioned that they have to take into account it's often more obviously fantasy (and very obviously not real) but also possibly more likely to be assumed to be ok for children.

Think how things like Teenage Mutent Ninja Turtles was dealt with in the 90's and compare that to how anime is at the moment and the change mirrors what has happened in live action.