The average gap between films being released in the US and locally is 20 days, despite claims from Village Roadshow that delays are the 'exception'

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

The head of one of Australia's largest film production and distribution companies has called the delay of movie releases in Australia a "rare exception", implying films are not usually released here later than in other countries.



However, a comparison of film release dates shows the opposite.



After the internet service provider iiNet pointed out a delay in the release of The Lego Movie, Village Roadshow co-chief executive Graham Burke told ZDnet:



"The Lego Movie, with iiNet along with all the lies they tell, and they know they're telling lies, a lot of good decent people out there have a bunch of assumptions they believe to be correct [because of iiNet]. They know that Lego was a rare exception. The reason Lego was delayed [was] because it was an Australian film," he said.



"We made the decision to hold it off a couple of months until the school holiday break so kids could see it in the holidays, which is when they want to see it. That was a one-off. It's not an example of how films are delayed in Australia."

Burke's comments are at odds with the common perception that it is normal for movies and TV releases in Australia to lag behind the US.



So I decided to check how Australian release dates compare with US release dates.

I took Box Office Mojo's list of top 100 movies by box office takings for both 2014 and 2013 for Australia and then added US release dates sourced from Box Office Mojo and IMDB.



Although IMDB crowd-sources such information, I spot-checked some release dates against those on Australian cinema websites and found no discrepancies (though please mention in the comments if you see any errors).

I removed any movies that had not been released in both countries, then took the remaining 168 films and calculated the difference in days between the two dates by subtracting the US release date from the Australian release date.

Positive numbers mean the film was released in the US first, negative numbers mean it was released in Australia first.



On average, the film release dates for Australia were 20 days behind the US.



Only 41 titles were released in both countries within a day of each other, and 20 were released in Australia before the US. Most titles, 107, were released in Australia only after they had been released in the US.



Here's the full list of titles, sorted by the difference in days:

Village Roadshow was contacted for comment on the analysis, but declined as Burke was unavailable.



Edit: Fixed an incorrect date for Walking With Dinosaurs, which has shifted the average gap in release dates