The Wog Boy sails past A$10m mark

The Wog Boy, a broad Australian comedy with a strong Greek influence, has passed the A$10m mark at the local box office, and now has only four titles to overtake to make it into the all-time top 10 of locally-produced films.

A mainstream film that reaches A$10m is regarded as a hit in Australia although huge blockbusters can exceed A$20m. The Wog Boy only has to overtake four titles to become one of the top 10 highest grossing Australian films - Mad Max II (Warner Bros, $10.8m), French-Australian co-production Green Card (Roadshow, $10.6m), The Castle (Roadshow, $10.3m) and Shine (Ronin, $10.2m). There is scant risk of this not happening as the film, in week five, took more than A$800,000.

Part of The Wog Boy's success is due to repeat business. It stars Nick Giannopoulos as the deal-making but unemployed Steve, a Mr Fix-it in Australia's Greek community, who locks horns with an unscrupulous government minister and eventually manages to sweep her coolly efficient assistant Celia off her feet. Giannopoulos built up a following with local audiences through his theatre and television work. The film is full of leopard print fashion, pizza, bad jokes and revved-up cars. Giannopoulos had a hand in the writing and produced it with John Brousek. The director was Aleksi Vellis. 20th Century Fox is handling distribution.

Title/(Distributor)/Gross

1. Crocodile Dundee (Hoyts*) $29m (A$47.7m)
2. Babe (UIP) $22.4m (A$36.8m)
3. Crocodile Dundee II (Hoyts*) $15.2m (A$24.9m)
4. Strictly Ballroom (Ronin) $13.3m (A$21.8m)
5. The Man From Snowy River (Hoyts*)$10.5m (A$17.2m)
6. The Adventures of Priscilla (Roadshow) $10.1m (A$16.5m)
7. Muriel's Wedding (Roadshow) $9.6m (A$15.8m)
8. Young Einstein (Warner Bros) $8.2m (A$13.4m)
9. Gallipoli (Roadshow) $7.1m(A$11.7m)
10. The Piano (Miramax/Disney) $6.8m (A$11.2m)

*Hoyts no longer handles distribution