The second locally produced film released in 2011 has performed poorly at the box office, despite a huge publicity campaign in the lead-up to its release.
Wasted On the Young, the Western Australian-produced feature for first-time filmmaker Ben C. Lucas made only $52,118 in its first week, screening on a dismal 54 screens around the country. That figure dropped by half this week. By contrast, Rango, an animated movie about a lizard in the Mexican desert featuring the voice of Johnny Depp, bagged $2.4mil in its opening week.
That’s a real shame, because Wasted looks like a very well-executed and tight film. As Triple J movie critic Marc Fennell points out, “[It’s] one of the most visually impressive flicks to come out of Australia in a long time.” There’s sex, drugs, babes..hell, even guns. So why are we do we keep turning our backs on local produce? It may be that after The Social Network and Catfish, ‘Facebook films’ have kind of done their dash. Or maybe Australians only know how to make one kind of drama really well – and those are the ones involving violence. Animal Kingdom, Underbelly, Suburban Mayhem… seriously, are there even any guns left in Australia?
Watching the trailer makes me want to see this film, at least ten times more than I want to see the incredibly vacuous Hall Pass , which we’ve already donated $4mil of our hard earned cash to. Where is the love, Australia? Don’t make us send our teenage bros with pistols over to your place…
via Inside Film.
