Overview of feature film production

The feature film production section of Get the Picture is based on the annual drama production survey, previously undertaken by the Australian Film Commission and now by Screen Australia. It covers Australian productions as well as co-productions and foreign programs shot here.

Over the past four decades Australia has built a solid local feature production industry. The average number of Australian features produced annually has grown from 14 films a year in the 1970s to 30 films in the 1980s, 26 films in the 1990s and 25 per year since then.

Over the last decade, production activity by foreign features increased significantly, with numerous high-budget titles, mostly from the US, shot in Australia. Titles include Fool’s Gold, Ghost Rider, The Great Raid, the Matrix films, Peter Pan, Star Wars (Episodes II & III), Stealth, Superman Returns, Son of the Mask, The Quiet American, Where the Wild Things Are and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Since 2000/01 foreign films have spent an average of $133 million in Australia, peaking at $258 million in 2004/05. In 2007/08, expenditure was $105 million, the same as the previous year but below the eight-year average. However, foreign feature production dropped significantly in 2008/09.

Converted to 2009 dollars, total production budgets for Australian feature films averaged almost $23 million annually in the 1970s, increasing to around $150 million during the 1980s and remaining at this level ever since. They exceeded $200 million once during the 1980s, twice during the 1990s and three times more in the following nine years (in 2003/04, 2006/07 and 2008/09).

The total budgets for Australian features can fluctuate annually, due largely to the impact of a small number of foreign-financed, usually high-budget, features. In 2008/09, it was the highest on record ($365 million), principally because of the high-budget titles Guardians of Ga’Hoole and Happy Feet 2.

Although data for local features is available from the 1970s, co-productions and foreign films shot in Australia have been tracked since 1990/91. During the 1990s, 13 features with total budgets of $91 million (current dollars) were made as official or unofficial co-productions. In the nine years since July 2000, 25 co-production features have been produced, with total budgets of $390 million.

Foreign feature production activity increased during the 1990s, with 11 foreign films shot here in the first half of the decade and 16 in the second half. These 27 foreign features had total budgets of $980 million, with 19 originating from US companies, two each from Japan, Hong Kong and India, and one each from Korea and the UK. In the nine years since, there have been 56 foreign features shot in Australia, with total budgets around $2.3 billion. Since 2000/01, 29 foreign features have originated from US companies (see: Focus: Foreign production: Foreign drama production in Australia). In the six years from 1994/95 to 1999/00, expenditure in Australia by foreign features averaged $65 million annually and in the nine years since it has averaged $133 million, although in 2005/06 expenditure dropped to $23 million, and in 2008/09 to just $2 million, with activity restricted to just six Indian titles.

Expenditure in Australia by features (Australian, co-production and foreign) has increased fairly steadily since 1994/95, when monitoring of this indicator began. It reached a high of $449 million in 2003/04 due to a number of high-budget titles that commenced that year, including the Australian animated feature Happy Feet and the US features Son of the Mask, Star Wars - Episode III and Stealth. While spending in Australia dropped in 2005/06 to $135 million, it increased to $339 million in the following year. In 2008/09 it totalled $359 million, above the nine-year average of $299 million.

Over the 15 years from July 1994 to June 2009, local features spent 96 per cent of their total production budgets in Australia, while co-productions spent 56 per cent and foreign features 53 per cent.