International appeal is extremely important to the bankability of Hollywood films, and Global Voices writer Fabienne Flessel looks at how this paradigm affected the release of Think Like a Man in France. Despite the film’s box-office success in America and a ready-made audience comprised of Afro-Europeans in France, the film based on Steve Harvey’s best-selling book is not available in French theaters.

Surprising as it may be, the answer lies in the fact that the film has an all-black cast. French cinema is often pointed at for not fairly displaying all components of the country’s multi-ethnic population. Although the recent success of the movie Les Intouchables, which earned French African actor Omar Sy the Cesar award for Best Actor in 2012, caused great pride and hope among French nationals from Africa and the Caribbean, it was not to be the turning point for a deep and lasting change.

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