Hoyts Distribution chief executive Robert Slaverio responds to the Spierig brothers' criticism over their promotional campaign for vampire film Daybreakers.
Dear IF,
Re-Spierig brothers Daybreakers comments.
It’s very disappointing as a distributor and a supporter of Australian films to read the comments made by the Spierig brothers about the marketing of Daybreakers.
The entire team worked for months on this release and gave 100 per cent to the film. This was supported by a P&A budget in excess of $1,000,000 which included advertising across newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and online media.
This was backed up by an extensive publicity campaign from key cast members which totaled close to 100 interviews.
Your comment that the box office results suggest their comments might have substance is totally incorrect and unfounded.
The fact is the result is above the normal average percentage for this genre against the US result. The normal industry average for Australian box office vs the US box office is 6 per cent – our result ended up being over 8 per cent.
Our drop off compared to the US was far less in our second and third weekends (56 per cent and 64 per cent). The US drops were 67 per cent in weekend two and 70 per cent in weekend three.
Even though the film dropped quickly, again the norm for this genre, we still supported the film with further in-season advertising.
The Spierig’s are entitled to their opinion but to say that Australian marketing departments in general "have no clue", "poor awareness" and "just generally not knowing how to release films to the public" is an insult to our business and my industry colleagues and demonstrates their lack of understanding of how difficult and risky film distribution is.
We give 100 per cent support to all of our releases as we did with Daybreakers. I’ll leave the last word to the Spierig’s who sent me the following note after our opening weekend of over $1,000,000.
Hi Slav,
This is great news.
Cheers,
Michael
Robert Slaverio
Chief Executive Officer
Hoyts Distribution