Housos Vs Authority takes over $500,000 on its opening weekend
Fenech: Brain behind Housos
Housos Vs Authority, the feature film version of Paul Fenech’s SBS TV series Housos has taken just over half a million dollars at the box office on its opening weekend.
Taking $526,000, according to official figures from the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia, the film was shown across 151 screens for a moderate $3485 screen average.
Transmission Films released the film paying particular attention to “the heartland of the TV show’s fan base,” Courtney Botfield, general manager of Transmission Films told Encore.
With the film taking a screen average of around $3,485, Botfield said: “We’re very happy with how it’s opened. It has played really well to its core fan base. It shows what a fan base Paul Fenech and the show has.”
While Botfield said there was not a opening box office figure in mind, when Encore spoke with Transmission’s Richard Patyen last week, the managing director said: “At 150 prints, you want to be doing north of a million, so that’s our aim.” This number was not just for opening weekend however.
Botfield said the film had great word of mouth behind it helped along by social media: “We’ve had such a great tool in Facebook with the audience growing another 7000 over the weekend.”
The Facebook page now has over 100,000 likes. GroupM media agency MEC is looking after the social media campaign for the film.
The film has made $554,000 including preview screenings.
On Friday, Mumbrella’s Tim Burrowes held a live Google Hangout with Fenech discussing the creator’s thoughts on both the film and TV industry.
Elsewhere in Australian film releases, veteran editor David Pulbrook has made his directorial feature debut with Last Dance. The film stars Firass Dirani of The Straits and Underbelly as a Palestinian terrorist who forces entry in a Holocaust survivor’s home to hide after he survives a failed suicide attack on a synagogue. The film, distributed by Becker, took $7,698 across six screens for a $1,283 average.
Documentary Paul Kelly: Stories of Me took another $139,000 at the box office. The film, distributed by Madman, had the week’s biggest screen average of $19,892 across seven screens in its third week in release. The film has now taken $363,000.
PJ Hogan’s Mental has made $69,600 for distributor Universal. In its fifth week in release, the film took a $819 screen average across 85 screens. The film has taken $3.963m to date.
Amiel Courtin-Wilson’s Hail, also released by Madman made another $3204 across two screens. The film’s box office currently stands at $35,075.
In International releases, new films Bachelorette, distributed by Hopscotch/eOne and End of Watch, distributed by Roadshow, couldn’t top Argo, in its second release by Warner Bros.
Argo added another $1.813m to its box office this weekend to be the top film of the weekend. Bachelorette was second at the box office, taking $841000 across 197 screens for a $4,270 screen average. End of Watch, across 191 screens took $738,000 for a $3,866 screen average.
Sharmill’s Metropolitan Opera presentation of L’Elisir D’Amore took $76,900 across 31 screens for a $2481 screen average.
Fenech can be compared to Nolan. Both came up with a unique, primitive style that reinvigorated the over-processed cornball of their times. And speaking of House husbands, Housos has more original insights than that predictable dribble.
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Good comedy works best theatrically in Australia…this pretty much proves it…
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I have to ask, is there some behind-the-scenes deal between Mumbrella and Housos? The past fortnight has seen several Housos stories already, plus the Google Hangout thing, and now here is another one. Meanwhile a comment I wrote last week under one of the Houos articles which was critical of the movie and suggested it was better suited to a straight-to-DVD-bargain-bin destiny was not published, despite there being nothing offensive in it.
Tim, is there some promotional deal between Mumbrella/Encore/Focal Point and Housos which we should be aware of?
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Hi Jack B Nimble,
No – no deal although we do like to champion local content of all flavours where we can. It’s the first time I’ve met or spoken to Paul Fenech, as it happens.
We publish the box office figures every Monday night, and we do tend to focus on the local results.
(I just found your previous comment sitting in our moderation queue. I can’t see why we didn’t publish it, so I have now done so.)
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Thanks for that, Tim!
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Always a pleasure, and never a chore…