Aussie
flick The Sapphires has been a big success on opening. Picture: Hopscotch Source:
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Neala Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, reports
The Sapphires has enjoyed the best opening for an Australian movie in almost two years, taking $2.32 million at the box office last weekend.
The feel-good musical drama about an all-girl Aboriginal singing group sent off to Vietnam to entertain the troops has put a sparkle into an otherwise dull 2012 at the local box office, pulling in the biggest crowds since teen action film Tomorrow When the War Began opened with $3.86 million in September 2010 and beating the $1.78 million debut of last year’s runaway success story Red Dog.
The Sapphires’ total gross now sits at $2.59 million, with distributor Hopscotch/eOne expecting it to reach $3.4 million by the end of the week.
“The reports we’ve been getting from cinemas is people applauding after each session,” said Troy Lum, managing director of Hopscotch/eOne. “Word of mouth seems to be very strong, so we hope the film is going to have really good legs.”
The performance puts the film at No.2 on the weekend chart behind The Dark Knight Rises with $2.74 million. Lum believes Batman can be defeated: “We might catch it by the end of the week,” he predicted.
“Batman is showing on more screens (500-plus) than we are, but we’re pleased as punch. It’s very difficult in this very studio-driven environment to get a result like this. When you’re punching above your weight the way The Sapphires is, it’s really heartening.”
The Aussie flick has benefitted from advance interest overseas, with a well-received premiere at Cannes, Hollywood heavyweights the Weinstein Company buying the rights for a US release and star Jessica Mauboy catching the eye of American Idol impresario Simon Cowell.
Such “international approval” can do wonders for a film locally – as happened when Melbourne crime drama Animal Kingdom picked up US awards buzz – but Lum believes Australian audiences make up their own minds.
“I don’t think Australians buy into that stuff unless they see it and they think it’s good. While it’s helpful the film played well at Cannes, if Australian audiences didn’t take to it, it wouldn’t have generated the kind of result it did on the weekend.
“My feeling with Aussie films is that people need that personal recommendation. People need to be told, ‘Yes, this is a good movie, you should go and see it’. That has happened with this film – we screened it a lot beforehand, really got it out there and people are talking about it. That’s the best advertisement for a movie.
“The unknown variable for us was whether the film was going to play in the suburban and regional areas. There’s always the danger that you get a really strong result out of the urban areas and not so much anywhere else. But the most heartening thing about the result for us is it is spread out all over Australia. It’s not just playing to upmarket audiences, it’s been embraced by middle-Australia.”
By capturing suburban and regional audiences, The Sapphires has maximised its chances of reaching Red Dog-levels of success.
“We’ve always had pretty high expectations, so I don’t think we could raise them any more,” Lum said. “When you see it and feel it, it’s hard to dampen those expectations. If you see this movie, you feel compelled to tell other people about it.
“No matter how much money you spend on advertising or marketing, that’s really the key.”
The Sapphires opened on 275 screens, slightly wider than recent local hits Mao’s Last Dancer ($2.75 million off 266 screens in 2009) and Red Dog (which at its height was showing on 268 screens).
Red Dog opened on the same August weekend last year with $1.78 million, then increased its takings the following two weekends. It went on to gross $21.3 million, just scraping into the Top 10 of overall box-office takings in 2011 and becoming the eighth highest-grossing Australian film of all time.
However, Red Dog was well ahead of the pack; the next best-performed Australian films of 2011 being 3D cave-diving thriller Sanctum ($3.9 million) and child-migration drama Oranges and Sunshine ($3.8 million). Sanctum, backed by Avatar maestro James Cameron, travelled best, taking $103 million worldwide.
Australian films last year accounted for 3.9 per cent of total box office of $1.09 billion. That was down on the 4.5 per cent of total box office in 2010, when nine Australian films grossed over $2 million, led by Tomorrow When the War Began, Bran Nue Dae, Animal Kingdom and The Kings of Mykonos.
So far in 2012, wedding comedy A Few Best Men (a co-production with the UK team behind Death at a Funeral) leads the way, its $1.8 million opening weekend in January leading to a total gross of more than $5 million.
The Joel Edgerton-starring drama Wish You Were Here is next best with $1.46 million, followed by Any Questions for Ben?, the disappointing comeback from the makers of The Castle, which took $1.43 million.
Animated sequel Happy Feet Two was released last Boxing Day, but took the bulk of its $10.4 million this year.
The Australian movie industry still has some tricks left up its sleeve for 2012.
September 6 sees the release of Kath & Kimderella and Bait.
The former, the movie debut for TV’s beloved foxy morons Kath & Kim, should be able to ride its built-in audience and heavy nation-wide promotion to a strong opening weekend. Bait, a 3D thriller in which Xavier Samuel and Julian McMahon are trapped in a supermarket with a killer Great White shark, is likely to follow in the footsteps of Sanctum and do impressive business internationally. It will have its world premiere on September 1 at the Venice Film Festival.
Mental, which reunites Muriel’s Wedding pair PJ Hogan and Toni Collette, will close the Melbourne International Film Festival on Saturday and open the Australian International Movie Convention on the Gold Coast on Sunday. A convention for distributors and exhibitors, AIMC last year built up plenty of advance buzz for A Few Best Men.
Mental opens nationally on October 4.
With Baz Luhrmann’s Warner Bros-backed The Great Gatsby moving to mid-year, local cricket-tour comedy Save Your Legs! (out January 24) appears set to have summer to itself.
The Sapphires also opened in France last weekend (box office results not yet available), with Britain and US releases to follow from November.
Best Australian movie opening weekends of the last three years
1. Tomorrow When the War Began – $3.86 million – Sept 2010
2. Mao’s Last Dancer – $2.75 million – Oct 2009
3. The Sapphires – $2.32 million – Aug 2012
4. Happy Feet Two – $2.21 million – Dec 2011
5. A Few Best Men – $1.83 million – Jan 2012
6. The Kings of Mykonos: Wog Boy 2 – $1.83 million – May 2010
7. Red Dog – $1.78 million – Aug 2011
8. Bran Nue Dae – $1.61 million – Jan 2010
9. Sanctum – $1.6 million – Feb 2011
10. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole – $1.36 million – Sept 2010
11. Daybreakers – $1.06 million – Feb 2010
12. I Love You Too – $874,533 – May 2010
13. Oranges and Sunshine – $681,018 – June 2011
14. Animal Kingdom – $604,319 – June 2010
15. Beneath Hill 60 – $548,371 – April 2010
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