ИСТИНА

The reasons why the Russian audience decidedly rejected putting Jackson’s Hobbit into the category “Hollywood blockbuster”, unlike the viewers from the most other countries are revealed through a comparison of approximately 4000 answers from the RF and the USA within the International World Hobbit Project database (approximately 2000 answers from each of the countries). Quali-quantitative analysis of the answers concerning type of the films and the role of Fantasy is supplemented by cultural scrutiny of regrets the Russian and American respondents expressed and the manner of viewers’ involvement with the book and the films. Besides predominant motivation for viewing the film, the attitude to moral and social problems, the attitude to the story adaptation and to the characters are compared, which allowed to single out similarities and differences in the modes Russian and American responders react to fantasy in general and to Hobbit films in particular.