Australian films are the top three earners at the local box office for the first time in cinema history, according to Screen Australia.
Robert Connolly’s The Dry, starring Eric Bana, has taken more than $17m at the box office since it opened on 1 January.
The film is the number one box office earner for 2021 in Australia to date, beating the DreamWorks family animation The Croods: A New Age and the latest Hollywood blockbuster in the DC extended universe, Wonder Woman 1984.
Glendyn Ivin’s Penguin Bloom, starring Naomi Watts, sat in the second spot last week, and is the fourth highest earner of the year so far, having taken $5.83m since it opened three weeks ago.
The meat pie western High Ground, starring Jacob Junior Nayinggul and Simon Baker, has taken $1.93m in just over two weeks and nudged into third spot last Friday.
The action thriller The Marksman and the horror film Wrong Turn, both from the US, are fourth and fifth respectively.
As previously reported in the Guardian, the unprecedented popularity of Australian films so far this year can at least be partly attributed to Covid-19 and its march across the US, the UK and Europe.
Many overseas films have had their release dates delayed due to the pandemic, including Top Gun: Maverick, Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway, and No Time to Die, the latest in the James Bond franchise.
Media analytics company Numero has reportedly analysed more than 50 years of box office data to support the claim.
The Screen Australia CEO, Graeme Mason, told Guardian Australia that although it was not possible to say definitively that it is the first time such a hat trick had been scored, due to the way data is collected and filtered, the achievement was nevertheless a “huge moment” for the film industry.
“I can’t remember a time where we have had three films take the top spots like this,” Mason said.
“This milestone is testament to the incredible teams behind these films and the support from the Australian public show they are going to the cinema and celebrating these local stories on the big screen.”
