Nicole Kidman and Colin
Firth star in the upcoming WWII drama The Railway Man. Source: Supplied
Vicky Roach, The Daily Telegraph, reports
The Great Gatsby aside, it's been an underwhelming year for Australian cinema at the box office.
Baz Luhrmann's sparkling, 3D adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel is currently the fourth-highest earner for 2013 - behind Iron Man 3, Despicable Me 2 and The Life of Pi.
But of the nine other Australian features that had been released up until the end of August, only two have managed to even make it past the $1 million mark: kitchen sink musical Goddess ($1.64m) with Laura Michelle Kelly and Ronan Keating, and Bindi Irwin's Return to Nim's Island ($1.21m).
There are still six more home-grown productions scheduled in the next four months - Adoration starring Naomi Watts, Robin Wright and Xavier Samuel, Iven Sen's murder-mystery Mystery Road, the Redfern-set inspirational drama Around the Block starring Christina Ricci and Jack Thompson, suspense thriller Patrick, and The Turning, a collection of short films based on Tim Winton's stories.
But with the exception of The Railway Man, starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth, all of them are seen as smaller, niche releases. And given that Jonathan Teplitzky's WWII drama opens on Boxing Day, most of its earnings will roll over into 2014.
The overall number of releases is also down - 16 films against a 27-year average of 21 feature dramas per year.
Gatsby's $27.5 million contribution means Australia's share of the box office pie is currently sitting at a relatively healthy 4.4 per cent, but with a string of US blockbusters scheduled to roll out over the next four months, it's almost certain to fall significantly below four per cent by the end of the year.
"Probably none of the other pictures releasing between now and December 25, and I say that to some degree against myself but I am a realist, are going to substantially tweak those numbers,'' says producer Anthony Ginane, who has remade his 1978 cult hit Patrick with Sharni Vinson, Rachel Griffiths and Charles Dance.
"Conversely, the size of the box office always explodes from December when all the really big (US) films come through."
Hopscotch Films' managing director Troy Lum says the figures for the company's most recent release, Drift, starring Myles Pollard, Xavier Samuel and Sam Worthington, had been disappointing.
"It's really hard to compete for the young male ticket when their diet is superhero movies and (action franchises such as) The Fast And The Furious.
"But two of our top grossing films of all time, The Sapphires and Mao's Last Dancer, are Australian movies."
And if Australian cinema could be seen as having underperformed in 2013, 2014 could well be shaping to be a bumper year.
Lum has five local films on his slate including I, Frankenstein with Aaron Eckhart, Kill Me Three Times, the next film from Red Dog director Kriv Stenders, and Son of A Gun with Ewan McGregor.
Rival distributor Roadshow will release Wolf Creek 2, the Joel Edgerton crime thriller Felony, The Rover - David Michod's follow-up to Animal Kingdom starring Robert Pattinson and Guy Pearce - and potentially Mad Max: Fury Rd, although insiders now say the fourth Road Warrior instalment might not make it into the cinemas until 2015.
Also scheduled for release early next year are the Spierig brothers' sci-fi thriller Predestination, with Ethan Hawke, and Outback odyssey Tracks starring Mia Wasikowska.
"All those pictures have a significant shot (at breaking out),'' Ginane says.
No comments:
Post a Comment