FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday January 5th, 2009
Contact: Milly Swain
Head of Publicity
Tel: 02 8353 2155/ E: Milly.Swain@fox.com
“AUSTRALIA” BECOMES BAZ LUHRMANN’S BIGGEST MOVIE EVER!”
HOME-GROWN EPIC ENJOYS PHENOMENAL BOX OFFICE RESULTS DURING
THE HOLIDAY PERIOD
Twentieth Century Fox is proud to announce that on New Year’s Day 2009,
AUSTRALIA, surpassed
MOULIN ROUGE’s impressive Australian box office record of A$27.7M to become the most successful Baz Luhrmann
film of all time in his home country.
The outstanding cume to date is A$28.8M and has been achieved in just 5 ½ weeks, compared to 24 weeks for
MOULIN ROUGE, and faster than most of the major blockbusters of 2008 such as MAMMA MIA (8 weeks), QUANTUM
OF SOLACE (6 weeks), SEX IN THE CITY (15 weeks), INDIANA JONES & THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL
SKULL (7 weeks). The film is on track to sail past the significant milestone of A$30 million this week.
AUSTRALIA enjoyed exceptional results over the holiday season, grossing A$5.4 million between Boxing Day
and January 4th, up a huge +44 % from the previous 10 days.
Benefitting from strong audience reaction, the film is now in its 7th week of release and still playing widely across
the country at more locations than any other film in the market place, including the recent openers THE CURIOUS CASE
OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, MADAGASCAR 2 and BEDTIME STORIES.
Greater Union’s National Film Manager, Bill McDermid said “AUSTRALIA continues to perform strongly across
Greater Union Cinemas with the circuit recording a 10% increase in ticket sales over the weekend. An epic film such as
this one has proven to be one of the most popular films to see in our luxury cinema offering Gold Class, with sessions
continually selling out, even six weeks into release. Positive word of mouth in our regional cinemas is driving excellent
attendances. It's still the number one film in our cinemas in Canberra, Toowoomba, Cairns and Mackay. With the amount
of film product releasing at this time of year, it is a challenge to give each film the number of sessions they deserve.
However Australia continues to bring in strong box office results due to the demand by all Australians to see the
film and as such, it will continue to be programmed into our cinema for the foreseeable future.”
Twentieth Century Fox Australia’s Marketing Director, Marc Wooldridge said “There has been a lot of media
speculation about the performance of AUSTRALIA at the local box office, and we feel it’s time to set the record straight.
The film has just surpassed SEX IN THE CITY at the box office and in the next week or so, will out gross MAMMA MIA,
INDIANA JONES and QUANTUM OF SOLACE. AUSTRALIA
has continued to do impressive business and the
attendance over the holiday period in particular was sensational - well above industry expectations. By the end of its run,
AUSTRALIA is going to be the 2nd highest grossing film of the last 12 months, behind THE DARK KNIGHT. The people
of Australia have spoken, with close to 3 million cinema goers having seen the film already, we anticipate the very
positive trend to continue over the coming weeks.”
Overseas, AUSTRALIA also continues to have an excellent run earning an impressive cume to date of US$82.7m.
The film remains at the #1 position in key territories including Germany, Spain, Denmark, Sweden in its second week of
release and #2 in France, Austria and New Zealand.
AUSTRALIA is an epic and romantic action adventure, set in this country on the explosive brink of World War II. In it,
an English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman) travels to the faraway continent she meets rough-hewn local (Hugh Jackman) and
an enchanting mixed-race Aboriginal child (Brandon Walters). This unlikely trio join forces to save the land she inherited
and embark upon a transforming journey across hundreds of miles of the world’s most beautiful yet unforgiving terrain,
only to face the bombing of the city of Darwin by the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor. With his new film,
director Baz Luhrmann is painting on a vast canvas, creating a cinematic experience that brings together romance, drama,
adventure and spectacle.
NEWS 
