Significant seven: highest grossing films
Over the next few days, we are publishing highlights from this year’s Mumbrella Annual.
1. Red Dog
A three-way love story between a man, a woman and a dog, Red Dog touched the nation’s heart and wallet at the box office. Director Kriv Stenders moved beyond dark indie films Boxing Day and Lucky Country to show that Australians are suckers for marvelling at their own country, albeit a nostalgic version.
Box office revenue: $21m
2. Oranges and Sunshine
Oranges and Sunshine was a film about a different ‘stolen generation’. It starred David Wenham and Hugo Weaving as two Australian men, formerly British boys, who were taken from their parents, shipped here as kids and promised oranges and sunshine.
Box office revenue: $3.8m
3. Sanctum
James Cameron took the filming experience of The Abyss and applied it to this 3D thriller not safe for claustrophobics. What Triple J’s Marc Fennell said was “a great action movie where none of the cast should’ve been allowed to talk,” took $108.6m worldwide.
Box office revenue: $3.8m
4. The Cup
You’d think that a film about The Melbourne Cup, the race that stops the nation, would fill cinemas. But The Cup, directed by Simon Wincer, who made other horse-related films Phar Lap, The Young Black Stallion and The Lighthorsemen, never got out of the gates.
Box office revenue: $2.5m
5. The Eye of the Storm
Veteran director Fred Schepisi’s adaptation of the Patrick White novel had the star power of Geoffrey Rush, Charlotte Rampling and Judy Davis, but despite winning the Melbourne International Film Festival’s inaugural Age Critics’ Award it failed to win an audience.
Box office revenue: $1.6m
6. Mrs Carey’s Concert
Bob Connolly and Sophie Raymond’s tribute to the importance of music and its influence in shaping youth proved to be, so far, the highest-grossing documentary of the 2011.
Box office revenue: $1.2m
7. Snowtown
While it shocked Today entertainment critic Richard Wilkins into giving the film 0/10, this film about the Snowtown ‘bodies in the barrels’ murders was selected for Cannes Critics Week. It also won the Audience Award at the Adelaide International Film Festival. But to be fair to Wilko, Snowtown is grim from beginning to end.
Box office revenue: $1.1m
This list first appeared in the Mumbrella Annual, which is currently on sale priced at $10 for access to the digital edition or $20 for both print and digital access.- Both can be ordered through Realview, via this link
And I thought the Americans had produced a sh*t crop of films this year ….
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The Cup flopped because it was peurile and based on a pathetic media beatup dripping in saccharin sentimentality. The media created the whole myth of the jockey winning the 2002 Melbourne Cup for his dead brother with the subtext that the great god sport can overcome tragedy and the Almighty himself. I was sickened by the media fawning at the time and I was dumbfounded that someone p***ed millions up against the wall making this film.
I am overjoyed it flopped and it proves that the public had the same opinion as myself and were not sucked in by hype and media flummery.
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what about Sleeping Beauty?
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Snowtown is one of the worst films ever made. How they got funding to produce this shit is beyond me.
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