Crowds flocking to kiwi movies

22nd December 2005

NEW ZEALAND-made movies King Kong and Narnia are pulling in audiences in unprecedented numbers and will "probably knock Harry Potter off his perch", Regent 3 Cinemas co-owner Brent Goodwin says.

Mr Goodwin said since the films, now screening in Masterton, had opened this month there had been an amazing response, with both playing consistently to full houses and with no sign of slowing down.

"King Kong especially has been incredible, and if a three-hour movie can keep 60-odd kids transfixed in their seats, that is an extraordinary achievement.

"Harry had a huge opening weekend but it has now definitely slowed and will, I think, be knocked off its perch by our two New Zealand movies."

And the The World's Fastest Indian, the third New Zealand movie currently showing at Regent 3, had been "phenomenal" and although screenings have been cut to one a day, it's had a full house several times.

"It's a piece of our own history brought brilliantly to life," said Mr Goodwin.

He predicted the story of Southlander Burt Munro's effort to set a world speed record on his vintage Indian motorcycle would easily take $7million-plus at the box office, eclipsing the previous record held by Once Were Warriors which grossed about $6.5 million.

Although it's early days, he was confident that both Narnia and King Kong would also each reach the $7 million mark.

How times have changed and back in the early days of the Regent he remembered he would find a New Zealand movie and "it would pull about half a dozen people".

Those were the days when New Zealand did not have a film industry and movies were often violent, dark and forbidding, "but now it's a billion dollar business and what is even more extraordinary, is that it has taken off so fast."

He recalled that about 12 years ago an art festival was organised for Masterton and "I told everyone that it was not a festival if there was no film.

"So I fished around and found a movie called Braindead, made by a little-known New Zealand director called Peter Jackson."

The rest, as they say, is history.

The three movies that told Tolkien's story of the Lord of the Ring, filmed simultaneously over 20 months and collectively grossing almost $1 billion, flew the flag high for New Zealand.

They were not the only films made here that depicted some of our stunning scenery, and running parallel to Lord of the Rings was Nikki Caro's Whale Rider .

It had considerable overseas success and was filmed mostly along a lonely, beautiful stretch of the North Island's East Coast, while The Piano directed by Jane Campion also attracted rave reviews and was filmed on Auckland's wild west coast.

In the next few months New Zealand filmmaking stays in the spotlight with several opening virtually back-to-back in cinemas around the country.

Early in 2006 there's River Queen, by award-winning former Greytown director Vincent Ward; North Country, another directed by Nikki Caro and starring Charlize Theron; NumberTwo, directed by New Zealander Martin Campbell; and Perfect Creature with screenwriter and director Glenn Standring.