Well, I DO see your point Faye. Though I can't seem to imagine Jackie Chan in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
It really comes down to money. It ALWAYS comes down to money. As Faye pointed out, a film's box office run in the States can make it or break it financially...that's simply because of the sheer size of our population..280 million people with ten bucks and the desire to see a movie. And the fact is that it's not just Americans who like Americanized films. Films that are smash hits here are (with a few exceptions like The Patriot, Pearl Harbor and other singularly American stories) smash hits worldwide. The films that fail miserably here, also fail elsewhere.
Other countries simply don't have the audience base to make big budget action, adventure, sci fi/fantasy films. Why do you think the Japanese Godzilla movies still feature a guy in a rubber suit
For that reason the industry seems to cater to Americans first and everyone else second, at least in the case of super big budget films. It's a matter of "butts in the seats."
I'd like to see that sort of thing end and maybe now that HP has done so well more big budget films will be made outside the US. That means more movies with different artistic sensibilities and that can only be a good thing.
But I agree that casting one or two American b-list character actors in HP wouldn't have made it any less of a British production. Like I said before, despite the presence of several American actors and the fact that it was paid for entirely by American film studios, I still consider LotR to be a largely non-American production.
You have to wonder if their refusal to even CONSIDER American actors for HP doesn't indicate some deeper resentment.
But what's done is done and all's well that ends well. And anyway, the first two film's director, Chris Columbus IS an American. And the next film's director, Alfonso Cuaron, is also American, though of Mexican birth. So America did manage to get its fingers in there some how