John V. Soto’s The Reckoning has launched successfully at five cinemas in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane.
The crime thriller which stars Jonathan LaPaglia, Luke Hemsworth, Hanna Mangan-Lawrence, Viva Bianca and Alex Williams has raked in nearly $52,000 including previews.
The weekend total was $22,476 for a per-screen average of $4,495. “That is pretty damn good considering we only played 20 sessions,” Soto told IF.
That’s a healthier screen average than the debuts of Felony and Predestination (which held moderately well in their second weekends), These Final Hours and The Rover.
The tale of a detective who pursues two runaway teenagers whose video footage contains the identity of a killer, the thriller will test the emerging model for distributing Australian films when it’s released on most VoD platforms and on DVD on September 17 by the distributor, Selena Chung’s SC Movies.
The producer, Filmscope Entertainment’s Deidre Kitcher, said the accelerated VoD/DVD window will enable the film to capitalise on the publicity generated from the cinema release.
The Reckoning premiered at the British Independent Film Festival where it won the best director award for Soto and best music for composer Thomas Rouch.
Produced and developed with the assistance of ScreenWest and LotteryWest, it’s been sold by Lightning Entertainment to more than 40 territories; Anchor Bay Entertainment has the US rights.
The Spierig brothers’ Predestination pulled in $144,000 at 50 locations last weekend, easing by 29%, bringing its tally to $438,000.
Matt Saville’s Felony fetched $132,000 at 47 screens, down 29%, earning $408,000 so far.