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This entry was posted in Prue, cinema, media and tagged Australian Box Office, Bruno, Harry Potter. Bookmark the permalink.
Aussie Box Office breaks records!
2008 was a record year for the Australian Box Office however the first 6 months of 2009 has already smashed records. Over half a billion dollars was spent at the Australian box office during the first six months of the year which is 15% up on the same time last year!
Some of the big guns in 09 which have helped drive the increase include Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Monsters vs. Aliens, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Angels & Demons & Ice Age: Dawn of The Dinosaurs. I would also assume that the heavily discounted ticket offers early in the year may have played a role.
Interestingly it would also seem the increase at the Box Office has impacted on FTA audiences. Research shows a dramatic increase in light free to air viewing amongst frequent cinema-goers with 50% of frequent moviegoers now light or non FTA viewers.
So can we continue to see cinema attendance grow? I’d suggest the back half of the year is already off to a strong start with the launch of Bruno last week which to date has taken over $7.5m. Whilst this is only marginally up on the Borat opening week of $6.08m, the launch of Harry Potter & the half-blood prince this week has seen the record set for the biggest opening Wednesday ever. Harry took a massive $4.4m Australia wide & broke the existing record set in 2007 by Harry Potter & the order of phoenix.
Source: Val Morgan July 2009
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I might be wrong, but we’re definitely seeing a surge of Aussies hitting the Internet and using social media. Does anyone else get the feeling that Australia will be a driving force for entertainment and media in a few short years?
Hi Gerard, in terms of Aus becoming a driving force for entertainment and media I would tend to disagree. Australia is only c.20-21 million people and geographically well away from larger key markets (USA, UK, Europe in general) where the majority of entertainment/brand launches are conducted, and the money is to be made. If you also take twitter as an example, over 60% of users are in the USA and less than 3% are in Australia. A lot of the growth for Oz has surged recently but we’ll only ever be a ‘bit player’. We’re quite late to the party for a developed country when it comes to adopting new technologies.