2009 saw best box office share for Oz films since 2001

Edited PR release issued by Screen Australia. Emphasis is mine:

"The 418 films screened in Australian cinemas in 2009 grossed $1.09 billion, making last year's total box office the highest on record. Of those films, 50 were Australian, accounting for $54.8 million or 5% of the total, according to Screen Australia analysis of Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia (MPDAA) data.

"This is the highest number of Australian films to be screened annually in over 25 years and also marks the greatest domestic share since 2001, when a combination of Moulin Rouge, Lantana, The Man Who Sued God and Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles took the Australian earnings to $64.4 million (7.8 %)..."

The release quotes Screen Oz CEO Dr Ruth Harley as saying that “while box office is a lead indicator of a film’s performance, it is important to note that it represents just one way in which audiences engage with Australian content.

"Our Research Unit has been analysing case studies of films over their entire first-release life cycle. Kokoda, for example, which took $3.2 million at the box office in 2006, recorded approximately 316,000 admissions. The film went on to achieve in excess of 1.3 million viewings in the two and a half years from cinema release to first free-to-air television broadcast. Cinema admissions accounted for just 24 per cent of these viewings...

“It’s a high priority for Screen Australia in 2010 to better understand downstream viewings as we refine a new range of measures to reflect audience engagement with Australian screen production.”

(Postscript: After posting I read this story in The Australian by from Michael Bodey:

"FEDERAL film and television agency Screen Australia has inflated its 2009 Australian box office figures by including a US-financed film starring Nicolas Cage that it initially didn't consider "Australian"' enough to qualify for the new producer rebate: Knowing." As Bodey comments, the claim implicitly confirms the Proyas film did eventually get the rebate.)