Oz Film's Big Day

Oz film notes
The AFI Awards are on this weekend and one prominent scribe has let it be known privately that Kenny is a certainty for Best Picture. Maybe, though I find it hard to believe that the serious Jindabyne or the humanely wise Ten Canoes wont fight it out. In the lead-up Gary Maddox of the SMH managed to get the local distributors to divulge the box office grosses of all the Oz films released this year. The gravamen of Maddox’s report was that the bunching of releases that occurs because of the need to get ready for Cannes then Toronto then the AFI’s is the reason for the less than spectacular performances of many of the titles. The list however is fascinating; Heading it is Kenny ($7.3m) followed by Jindabyne ($5.3 m) and Ten Canoes ($3.3m). Boytown and Kokoda also took over $3m. Candy was the only other film to pass $1m. At the other end were Like Minds ($35,000) and Opal Dream ($64,000). My favourite filmic voodoo doll Khoa Do’s Footy Legends tapped punters for the grand total of $557,000 after opening on over 100 screens. I’d love to know how much of that came from markets outside New South Wales.