It came as no surprise that Hunt for the Wilderpeople had a great opening week at the New Zealand box office, but the scale of its record-breaking success was never a given.
Multiplexes and independent cinemas alike around the country took part in premiere events the night before Wilderpeople’s official opening day, boosting excitement about the release and helping it along to a record-breaking weekend.
The latter group, indie cinemas who make up the New Zealand Motion Pictures Exhibitors Association (NZMPEA) launched their My Cinema platform for the premiere, allowing them to hold their own preview screenings, focusing on their local communities and featuring exclusive, never-seen-before footage and introduction from director Taika Waititi.
When announcing the initiative, NZMPEA President, Mark Christensen noted “On average, independent cinemas account for 20% of the NZ box office, but Boy and What We Do In The Shadows over performed with 22% and 25% respectively. As one of our most celebrated local filmmakers, Taika resonates with independent cinemagoers and we are very excited for the release of Hunt for the Wilderpeople.”
Had Christensen put money on Wilderpeople doing even better, he would be even more excited after seeing the opening week results, as independents scored a 30.72% share of the film’s $1,263,035 opening weekend total.
Some anecdotes we like from indies taking part in the My Cinema promotion:
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Brent Goodwin who runs Masterton Regent 3, allegedly went on TradeMe and bought up all the Barry Crump books he could find in anticipation (so you know who to blame if the market price has quadrupled).
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From State Cinema Motueka: “Per screenings, it’s certainly our best ever for numbers in 14 years, and this is not the visiting audiences to the region on their Xmas holiday, this is locals coming out of their comfort zone, retired folk, making the effort on their stick and in wheel chairs to visit us, some never been to the cinema for years. People love it and we are still getting claps after claps at each screening, and it’s difficult to get them to leave as they want to chat all the bloody time.”
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From the Monterey Cinema Upper Hutt: “We had our biggest day since opening here in Upper Hutt this past Saturday in large part due to this film.”
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From Moviemaxx Cinemas Timaru: “Thought I would recount this one to you; this afternoon we have had two guys stop in Timaru just to see the film. They are travelling from the North Island, through the South Island on motorcycles. Throughout the weekend they have received a number of messages from family who have seen the film and loved it, leading them to make a special stop with us this afternoon. I think that is the first time I had heard anything similar in the 18 years I have been in this business!”
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Odeon Theatre in Gisborne: Had to ask their programmer to add more time between sessions, as they were selling them all out and didn’t have time to clean in between and did $14.4k screen average, above the $11.1k national average.
“If I were American I’d be doing a fist-pump and screaming ‘We’re number one! We’re number one!”’ said Waititi. “But I’m a Kiwi so I’ll pretend it’s not really a big deal and just stand around looking embarrassed by the achievement. Ah screw it, I’ll allow myself one fist-pump.”
Gratifyingly for the filmmakers, distributors, and cinemas, that was just week one… There may have been at least one more fist-pump today when seeing figures from the weekend just been, with Hunt for the Wilderpeople taking even more at the box office than it did upon opening. Incredibly for a wide release film, it earned 4.8% more on weekend number two, (for context, a drop of 30% would be considered good news). The result is the Highest Weekend Ever for a Kiwi film – $1,324,274 in takings.
The distributor estimates this to be 200,000 admits in 12 days (including the Wednesday preview events). “We’re hearing about whole families going out to see it from 6 to 84 and everyone loving it. People still going to their movie theatre for the second weekend in a row and walking away disappointed because the film was sold out again. Packed houses breaking into spontaneous applause at the end is the norm with this film rather than the exception. People are coming out to see this film who have not been to a movie theatre in months or even years.”
At Flicks we haven’t been shy about recommending the film, or indulging in repeat viewings. What about you? We’d love to hear comments about your Wilderpeople experience below.
