Australian and co-productions: Feature films: Production activity

At $358 million, the value of production activity for the 2008/09 slate (as measured by budget expenditure in Australia) was well above last year’s $170 million and the five-year average of $194 million. This increase is primarily due to two high-budget local titles, Guardians of Ga’Hoole and Happy Feet 2. The 29 Australian features in this year’s slate had total budgets of $365 million, compared to a five-year average of $177 million.

The distribution of Australian features across the various budget ranges was similar to the five-year average with a slight shift from the under $3 million to the $3–6 million range. (Features with budgets of less than $500,000 are included in the survey only if they have had a festival screening or cinema release; see Notes on survey methodology.)

The three co-productions in the 2008/09 slate spent $17 million in Australia, below the five-year average of $25 million. Two of these were official co-productions: At World’s End (Australia/Germany) and The Boys Are Back (Australia/UK). The other is the unofficial Australian/US co-production Beauty and the Beast.

Australian and co-production feature films, 2004/05–2008/09

Notes:
Figures may not total exactly due to rounding.
1. See page 2 for definitions of Australian and co-production.

Australian and co-production feature films by budget range