On May 4th, Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, Get Out–a film that slowly gathered a hype rivaled only recently by Kendrick Lamar’s latest drop–will open in Australia. But confusingly, it’s hitting our shores after having been in US theatres for over 3 months. As the Australian entertainment industry struggles to stay afloat, distributors and cinemas are left to question why kids don’t want to see movies in the cinema anymore – and all signs point to non-stop push backs as the answer.
In case you haven’t noticed, Australians love stealing movies – in fact, we’re better pirates than Johnny Depp will ever be. Generation Z, especially, just can’t get enough of pirated movies, with a whopping 31% of 12 to 17-year-olds pirating films in October 2016–a number that’s doubled since 2015.
So why are Australian adolescents using our country's notoriously slow internet connections in order to steal movies? More importantly, how are they jacking so many films so quickly, when it takes on average 200 years to download an episode of Rick and Morty? Fingers are pointed in multiple directions: cinema availability, ticket-prices, crying babies in theatres.
However, the key issue that many are discussing is Australian distributors’ obsessions with delaying the release date of highly-anticipated films in Australia. Get Out is just one example of an extensive list of movies that have been held off for extended periods of time in the AU. According to The Guardian, there is, on average, a 20-day delay between release dates in the US and Australia. Looking at that stat, it’s understandable that so many Australians are pissed off at our cinemas right now.
Even with the frequent public outcry at these delays, distributors actually have some decent reasons to hold off on these releases. For one, our school holidays–where the most money is made–fall at a different time to the US. Australian distributors also often wait for US box office results before scheduling a release date for a film in Australia. It's clear that for some films, Australia had to wait for a good reason – but for others, distributors have simply shot themselves in the foot.
Let’s start with the delayed film of the hour, Get Out. Jordan Peele’s racial horror flick is causing a mass echo chamber of praise in the US right now, currently sitting at 99% on film-review aggregator ‘Rotten Tomatoes’, and already raking in over $184 million at the US box office. The film was released in Trump’s America on the 24th of February, so why is it not out in Australia until the 4th of May? For one, it was never going to until it became the box office success that it did. After critical acclaim at Sundance in January of this year, the film was immediately picked up for a much wider February release in the US.
Following its ridiculously high ratio of profit to budget, Australian distributor Universal naturally slated in the film as soon as it could. The problem is, with Australia having so few cinemas compared to America, “as soon as it could” was not until the 4th of May. So sure, the nature of the delay is understandable, but if Universal were going to delay the film, why not wait until Australian school holidays on the 1st of July? Now, with dying hype, and Australian students bizarrely choosing to put their education over seeing dope films, Get Out will probably struggle to find its footing on local soil.
What about Keanu Reeves dog-inspired slaughter-fest, John Wick: Chapter 2? The film opened on February 10th in the US, and is not scheduled to release until the 18th of May in Australia. Currently, the film has grossed $162 million from a $40 million budget, has a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, and Keanu somehow looks younger than ever in it – that should be more than enough reason to release the film without a delay in Australia, right? While all signs point to the film being a major success, Australian distributors were hesitant to green-light the film’s slating straight away, due to how poorly the first film, John Wick, performed in 2014.
Wick’s first outing, which saw the ex-hitman come out of retirement in order to kill every man responsible for taking his date-magnet beagle puppy from him, grossed a measly $2.8 million in Australia. Considering that it opened in 177 theatres just 6 days after the US, that’s an undeniably trash office taking.
In this case, it makes total sense for Australian cinemas to be worried about scheduling the film for a release straight away, as well as giving it the much-coveted school-holiday slot. Given that the responses to John Wick: Chapter 2 have been excellent, we can only hope that a successful run in Australia will lead to a fast-tracked release of the planned third outing of Reeves’ action hero in a few years from now.
Of course, you can’t talk about delayed movies without mentioning the February 10th US release of The Lego Batman Movie, and the fact that Australia didn’t get the drop till the 30th of March. While that alone would piss most parents right off, more infuriating for them is the fact that this is not the first-time Australian distributors have delayed a blockbuster animation, or even pushed back a Lego-based one. As of the 19th of April, Lego Batman has only taken $4.6 million in the Australian box office after playing for 22 days in over 500 cinemas. The movie has bombed, and at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, it seems obvious that the finger needs to be pointed at the distributors.
But it makes sense why they thought profits would be unaffected. In 2014, The Lego Movie was delayed from its February 7th US release to April 3rd of that year in Australia. Distributors explained that it’d be a one-off, choosing to slate the film for the beginning of school holidays.
The fact that the film still grossed $27 million in Australia suggests the delay wouldn’t affect profits; this has now, of course, proved totally false. The sheer amount of cash to be made for the distributors of animated films seems to be too good an offer to resist, but with a tech-savvy generation eager to pirate films, maybe they should have really thought this one out.
It’s easy to pick up the pitchforks and call for a military coup when movies as good as John Wick are delayed. However, distributors in Australia do have a good reason to hold off films until more profitable periods. Although The Lego Batman Movie has bombed in Australia, we can only look to audiences to come out and support smaller films during non-holiday periods in order for things to change.
