All articles by Sandy George – Page 40
-
News
NEW ZEALAND 22 March
The Ring Two scaredits UIP stablemate, Meet The Fockers, off the top of the chart on theweekend. In its opening weekend The Ring Two grossed NZ$298,535 from 43screens. This equated to a screen average of NZ$6,943, the biggest in thechart. The other strongopener on the weekend was Be Cool, the ...
-
News
AUSTRALIA 16 March
The nearly A$7.5 million taken at the Australian box office for thefour-day weekend to 16 March was the smallest of the year, despite Victorianshaving a holiday weekend. Contributing factors would have been Australia's glorious autumn weatherand the start of the National Rugby League season.Five new films were scattered through the ...
-
News
NEW ZEALAND 16 March
UIP's Meet The Fockers remains on top of the NewZealand box office in its third week. The in-law comedy grossed NZ$345,778 from55 screens. Roadshow's Constantine and Sony's Closer,both in their second weekend in cinemas, and Roadshow's The Aviator, in itsfifth week, again ran second, third and fourth. Displacing Ray in ...
-
News
AUSTRALIA 9 March
Sony Pictures' Hitch opened on the weekend andshot straight to the top of the box office chart, grossing nearly three timesmore than the next most popular film. Hitch took A$3,507,820 from 370screens to clock up a screen average of A$9,481, the biggest in the chart.The rest of the top five ...
-
News
NEW ZEALAND 9 March
Roadshow's opening film Constantine was sent inon the weekend to challenge the box office supremacy of UIP's Meet TheFockers, which is only on its second weekend on release. But it failed: Fockergrossed NZ$500,991 from 60 screens compared to the NZ$421,541 taken by Constantinefrom 65 screensThe onlyother opening film, Closer, came ...
-
News
Ruby Dee takes lead in New Zealand's Number 2
Filming began yesterday (Thursday March 3) on New Zealandcomedy/drama Number 2 after last month's false start due to the death ofOssie Davis, husband of the film's lead Ruby Dee. The acting pair (pictured), have been passionate advocatesof social and racial justice. They were key players in the 1963 March onWashington ...
-
News
Australian newcomer buys Shortbus, Dumplings
Australiantheatrical newcomer Accent Film Entertainment has acquired both Shortbus,which is still in pre-production, and Dumplings, from Fortissimo FilmSales. "Hedwig And TheAngry Inch was such a wonderful film that we were very keen to jump onboard director John Cameron Mitchell's new film Shortbus aboutrelationships in New York post-9/11," said general manager ...
-
News
South Australia offers production incentive
South Australia is soon to offer producers a new incentiveto shoot in the state - a 10% rebate on the cost of local cast and crew,including post-production personnel.South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC) chief executiveHelen Leake told Screendaily.com that the initiative is being introducedon a trial basis and is capped at ...
-
News
AUSTRALIA 1 March
Constantine was the most popular film at the boxoffice for the four-day weekend to Sunday February 27, taking A$2,986,988 from289 screens. This was nearly three times more than the result for TheAviator, which was in second position after leading the chart for the twoprevious weekends. Constantine had easily the biggest ...
-
News
AUSTRALIA 15 February
Two US films new to cinemaslead the box office on the weekend and both would have got a boost because oftheir links to Australia. The Aviator, starring the homegrown Cate Blanchett, tookA$1,830,974 from 248 screens for Roadshow, and Hide And Seek, directedby the homegrown John Polson, took A$1,652,264 from 205 ...
-
News
Fox's Eucalyptus wilts under script rewrite
Fox Searchlight Pictures has announced that production onJocelyn Moorhouse’s Eucalyptus,which stars Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman, will not go ahead as scheduled”to allow time for further work on the script”.The news felt somehow prophetic to local film observers whohad been disturbed at the prospect of the considerably older Kidman playing ...
-
News
South Africa, Australia co-production treaty mooted
The governing council of theScreen Producers Association of Australia (SPAA) is expected next week toendorse a report arguing the case for a co-production arrangement to be put inplace with South Africa.If it happens, the reportwill be presented to the Australian Film Commission (AFC), the governmentagency that administers such arrangements. The ...
-
News
FFC Australia bankrolls four new features
Four new Australian features - Two Fists One Heart,Razzle Dazzle - A Journey Into Dance, Footy Legends and Macbeth -are all are going into production thanks to investment decisions madetoday by Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC).The country's principal film backer is also puttingpost-production finance into The Magician, which has already ...
-
News
NEW ZEALAND 9 February
It was a very unusualweekend at the New Zealand box office with nearly half the films rising up inthe chart instead of dropping down. This was caused by a combination of factorsincluding children being back at school, which has given more grown-up films aboost, strong word of mouth being created ...
-
News
Runaway business helps Australian production
Becker Film Internationalhas taken world sales rights on Feed, a psychological thriller thatBrett Leonard is now shooting in Australia.Runaway US films play a keyrole supporting service companies and building skills in host countries but Feedis a rare example of how runaway production has directly helped a localfeature. Producer Melissa Beaufordmet ...
-
News
NEW ZEALAND 3 February
Elektra was the most popular film in New Zealand cinemas onthe weekend, taking NZ$254,990 from 40 screens for 20th Century Fox in itsopening week and clocking up a screen average of NZ$6,375, which was thehighest in the chart. This was for the usual four days from Thursday to Sunday,although Monday ...
-
News
Foreign films struggle at Oz box office
The numberof foreign films released in Australia in 2004 from countries other than the USand the UK nearly doubled compared to 2003.However,the 80 films in question from across the world earned $28.4m (A$36.8m) -down from the $32.6m earned by just 43 foreign films in 2003. Thisequated to average earnings of ...
-
News
AUSTRALIA 31 January
Closer has knocked Meet The Fockers off the top ofthe chart, where UIP's in-laws comedy has reigned for the previous fiveweekends. In its opening weekend SonyPictures' Closer took A$1,609,499 from 157 screens for the four days toand including January 30, equating to a screen average of A$10,252, the highestin the ...
-
News
Australian box office hits record heights in 2004
Australians spent $693m (A$907m) going to the cinema lastyear, the highest annual result ever, according to new Motion PictureDistributors Association of Australia (MPDAA) figures.This was 4.79% or $31.6m more than last year's record.The MPDAA has not released the figure for admissions, however. This may havedipped, meaning that growth came from ...
-
News
AUSTRALIA 24 January
Roadshow sent Alexanderin to battle for the hearts and minds of Australians but UIP's Meet TheFockers remained the most popular film at the box office for the fifthconsecutive weekend. It grossed A$1,762,667 from 290 screens compared to theA$1,667,851 clocked up by Alexander, which had the disadvantage of beingon about 100 ...