Action Men Blow Away Box Office Challengers

Newcastle Herald

Saturday December 27, 2008

JAMES JOYCE

ACTION men dealt the knock-out blows at Australian cinemas in 2008, with six of the year's top 10 box office hits featuring heroic blokes, two played by Will Smith.

Final figures to be released in mid-January will show The Dark Knight was by far the year's biggest cinema drawcard, with ticket sales of $45.7 million.

The sixth Batman movie, starring Heath Ledger in his final complete role as The Joker, kapowed the much-hyped comebacks of Indiana Jones (with ticket sales of $29.3 million) and TV favourite Sex and The City ($26.8 million).

The Dark Knight now ranks sixth on the list of Australia's all-time favourite films, behind only Titanic, Shrek 2, Crocodile Dundee and two of the Lord of the Rings movies.

This year's other hero hits were comic book spin-off Iron Man (with $20 million), Smith's I Am Legend ($23.2 million) and Hancock ($20.5 million) and the 22nd James Bond film, Quantum of Solace ($26.9 million, and counting).

Surprise success of the year was the adaption of the stage musical Mamma Mia!, which warbled its way to $31.4 million and proved that ABBA songs can survive even strangulation by Pierce Brosnan.

Despite a mauling by critics, Baz Luhrmann's Australia has enjoyed bonza takings of $22.5 million after four weeks in cinemas.

The outback epic has eclipsed Luhrmann's Strictly Ballroom in sixth place on the list of Australia's favourite home-made films but is unlikely to challenge Crocodile Dundee (with $47.7 million in 1986) as predicted by distributor 20th Century Fox.

Apart from Australia, it was another poor year for Aussie films.

The highest-grossing home-made production, The Black Balloon, took only $2.3 million.

The bittersweet Toni Collette drama about a suburban family raising a mentally disabled son won the Australian Film Institute award this month for best picture.

The five films vying for the prize took only $3.9 million at the box office between them.

By comparison, a middling Hollywood movie like Beverly Hills Chihuahua sold $6.7 million worth of tickets.

Even TV series Underbelly notched up $15 million in DVD sales.

Bolstered by summer school holiday crowds, the animated animal antics of Madagascar 2, which enjoyed a hippo-sized $7.5 million opening last week, and teen vampire romance Twilight (with $10.3 million in two weeks), are likely to finish the year among the top 20 money-makers.

The best films of 2008 Critic's picks: today's H2

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

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