Majors, Catalonia pact on dubbing

BARCELONA -- The Hollywood majors and the government of Catalonia, one of Spain's wealthiest regions, have agreed the terms of a peace pact over the thorny issue of dubbing studio pics into the Catalan language. From November to July, the studios refused to release any films in Catalonia, after a new audiovisual law stipulated that, over a period of seven years, half of the print run of a major's releases had to be dubbed or subtitled into the local language. That law still lacks detailed regulation allowing it to come into force. The deal stipulates that, on an experimental basis over a two-year period, the studios will release 25 movies on an average 25 Catalan-dubbed print run across a network of 50 screens in Catalonia. Last year, the studios released five Catalan-dubbed movies on an average 15 prints in Catalonia. The region's Exhibitors Union has also agreed to the deal. The pact will take in Sony's "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn," the Paramount-released "Puss in Boots" and Fox's "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel." In general, movies dubbed into Catalan will be toonpics, family fare and blockbusters, Luis Hernandez de Carlos, prexy of Spanish distrib lobby Fedicine, which groups together all of Hollywood's Spanish sub-branches, told Variety. The Catalan-dubbed titles will play 50 screens at theaters with three or more screens, ensuring that they are not dumped in sparsely populated locations. At a joint Catalan government-Fedicine press conference, Felix Riera, director of the Catalan Institute of Cultural Industries, estimated the new deal could raise spectators for Catalan-dubbed studio fare from 117,471 in 2010 to 1.5 million in 2012. But nobody knows quite how the move will play out. All parties will review the results after two years, said Hernandez de Carlos, and then decide how to move on from there. John Hopewell contributed to this article. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

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