Local cinema has gone to the dog after disappointing year at box office

Cashed-up canine ... Red Dog earned $21.1m locally.

Karl Quinn, The Age, reports

IT'S been a dog of a year for Australian films at the box office. The hit family oriented movie Red Dog accounted for more than half the local take.

Red Dog has earned $21.1 million locally (it has yet to go on general release overseas), accounting for 2.1 per cent of the estimated Australian box office of $995 million to December 21.

All the other Australian films combined accounted for a further $18 million, for a total local share of $39.1 million, a shade over 3.9 per cent. The 10-year average is 4.2 per cent.

The final figures for the year, which are likely to be released early next month, will be bolstered by Happy Feet Two, from Sydney director-producer George Miller, but are still likely to be down on last year's result.

At the same time last year, total receipts were about $1.08 billion, en route to a record $1.13 billion for the year. That result was bolstered by the performance of Avatar, which took more than $76 million last year and a total of $106 million since its release in December 2009.

James Cameron's blockbuster was one of six films that earned more than $30 million at the local box office last year, but this year only three films, all of them sequels, have passed that figure - the final Harry Potter, the latest Transformers and The Hangover Part 2.

Last year, Australian films accounted for $50.6 million, or 4.5 per cent, of the local box office and nine of the top 100 films. This year, only four Australian films made the top 100. Joining Red Dog were Sanctum, (77th place, $3.83 million), which was produced by Cameron but made on the Gold Coast, Oranges and Sunshine (79th place, $3.73 million) and The Cup (93rd place, $2.67 million). Of those, Sanctum has performed best globally, earning $107 million.

Things look a lot healthier if The King's Speech is included. The film took the bulk of its $31 million local box office this year, but despite having an Australian producer (Emile Sherman), an Australian co-star (Geoffrey Rush) and an English director who considers himself half-Australian as his mother was born here (Tom Hooper), officially it is British.

The best year for Australian cinema locally in dollar terms remains 2001, when a line-up that included Moulin Rouge, Lantana, The Man Who Sued God and Crocodile Dundee in LA earned a record $63.4 million.