It took much more than a simple audition to nab the lead role in Alastair Newton Brown’s Here Be Dragons.
Well, that was a quick reign for Napoleon, with the Hunger Games prequel jumping back to the top spot in Week 3 of release. Props to Warner Bros for backing Bottoms, an original story with nary a name cast, made by an exciting new female voice, but the box office says otherwise. Same goes for Uproar, a beautifully made crowdpleaser from the other side of the ditch, which struggled despite its success on home turf. But the big story for the third week in a row is the staying power of promising young woman Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, which continues to increase its box office haul every respective weekend.
The Kiwi-born, Australia-based filmmaker went back to his roots for his most successful film yet, Uproar.
Fascinating to see 2 Apple TV+ funded feature films – Napoleon and Killers of the Flower Moon – that have been given a proper release window before hitting streaming, doing so well at the box office. They’ll hardly recoup the cost of making and releasing, but as profile raisers, this must offer an alternative model to other streamers for a cinematic release. Speaking of ‘Insert Name’ Originals, Australia’s own The Royal Hotel is touted as a Binge Original – not originally, after production, but still… which hasn’t done so well on opening weekend, pipped at the post by 1-off screenings of a Carl Barron special. Saltburn, though, continues to attract audiences into week 2, with the weekend’s smallest drop off, proving that audiences love/hate our Anglo cousins, especially the posh ones.
It was joy, not a mess, when we visited the set of the latest film by Heath Davis (Book Week, Broke).
Despite the online doomsayers, Hunger Games prequel, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes opened strongly, which will unfortunately mean more prequels. Apart from that, the surprisingly wide release of Saltburn saw some sites doing boffo business, whilst too many were DOA – should be interesting to see the screen spread for that one in Week 2. Speaking of DOA, it doesn’t look like Thanksgiving means much to Australian audiences, understandably.
One of the founders of recently launched artist studio Junior Major, used a forward-thinking course, Master of Arts Screen: Business (MASB) at the Australian Film Television and Radio School [AFTRS] to road test her intuition that the business had legs.
Within a couple of years of arriving in Australia from Malaysia, Indrani Kopal, a teacher and filmmaker is excited about the opportunities ahead of her after commencing Master of Arts Screen: Business at AFTRS.
The Melbourne native returns for the premiere of her first feature film as writer, producer and star, Healed.
Writer/Director Andrew Walsh and producer Dia Taylor fill us in on their improvised, self-financed, deeply personal feature.