Today's Must Read: Why Does Hollywood Dominate US Cinemas?

Here's a must-read article from Yale Global Online about the shrinking foreign film market in the U.S. and the difficult time Hollywood's having in marketing them:

...few foreign films make it onto American screens. In 2001, imports represented less than 1 percent of all films shown in the USA. Free traders would argue that Americans simply prefer Hollywood movies, but the real reasons for this imbalance are more structural than cultural. The market for foreign films has contracted in the US over the past thirty years, due to the rise of American independent film, the decline in independent theaters, and the restored vertical integration of the US film industry. In such an environment, the gate-keeping role played by American distributors of foreign films becomes ever more crucial.

Why Does Hollywood Dominate US Cinemas?