11 02 2022 - Media release CEO's 2021 Year in Review and 2022 Preview
Love on the Spectrum, Penguin Bloom, Dive Club
In 2021 the screen industry continued to adapt to working in the COVID-19 pandemic, as planning for sudden lockdowns, COVID-Safe ways of working and additional COVID-related costs became the norm. The sector has shown incredible levels of creativity and resilience in producing and distributing content with record-breaking expenditure figures. We enter 2022 knowing that significant challenges and opportunities lie ahead particularly with the arrival of the Omicron variant and logistical issues around supply chains and travel plans.
At the beginning of each year, the agency looks back at the previous year's Australian box office data, television ratings and online viewing figures alongside research such as the Drama Report to provide a more comprehensive snapshot of the sector.
Screen Australia's CEO Graeme Mason said, While box office, television ratings and online viewership figures over the past year remain valuable in measuring the overall health of the industry, similar to 2020 we can't rely solely on these. It is key to consider the impact the pandemic wrought - particularly on our friends in cinema distribution, who went from having three Australian films at the top of the box office in February, to state-wide lockdowns in NSW and Victoria six months later. It's not surprising to see the flow-on effect of this in the full local box office figures. More and more content also continues to premiere on streaming services, who keep viewing figures internally, but also have global reach.
Screen Australia's latest Drama Report showed a record-breaking level of expenditure on drama production in Australia in 2020/21 of $1.9 billion, more than 50% above the five-year average. The unprecedented increase is attributed to projects postponed into the year by COVID shutdowns as well as low levels of COVID-19 in Australia during 2020/21 making Australia an attractive destination, and high-profile Australian creatives attracting foreign titles along with a very strong slate of new Australian projects.
In January 2021 the Our Summer of Cinema campaign, a joint effort between distributors, exhibitors, projects and Screen Australia to entice audiences back into cinemas, helped bring in more than $30 million at the box office for local features The Dry, Penguin Bloom, High Ground and Firestarter The Story of Bangarra.
Feature film is set to continue to shine in 2022. Here Out West released last week (3 Feb) and Wyrmwood Apocalypse on 10 February. The upcoming slate also includes Falling for Figaro (24 Feb), Ruby's Choice (24 Feb), Mother Mountain (28 Apr), The Drover's Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson (5 May), How To Please A Woman (26 May) and Baz Luhrmann's Elvis biopic (23 June). This year production for director Dr George Miller's Mad Max prequel Furiosa kicks off, which is set to be one of the biggest movies ever to shoot in Australia.
In television, the second season of the very popular Stan Original series Bump started off the year, with a third season already in the pipeline, and The PM's Daughter launched on ABC. Upcoming television series include Troppo (ABC, 27 Feb), After the Verdict (Network 9) and Barons (ABC), MaveriX (ABC), The Secrets She Keeps Series 2 (Network 10), Surviving Summer (Netflix) and Darby and Joan (Acorn TV).
Online projects due to release in 2022 include A Beginner's Guide to Grief on SBS On Demand, funded via the Digital Originals initiative, as well as Ginger and the Vegesaurs (ABC iview), First Day Series 2 (ABC iview) and Meta Runner Series 3 (YouTube), and The Monster with Me (TikTok).
In documentary, River, the follow up to award-winning feature documentary Mountain is releasing in March along with feature documentaries Anonymous Club and Blind Ambition. Forthcoming television documentaries include First Wars (SBS), Ningaloo (ABC), Missing Persons Investigation (Network 9), and Shipwreck Hunters Australia (Disney ).
Screen Australia's First Nations Department has a strong slate of upcoming projects. In television this includes the drama series True Colours (SBS/NITV) and the much anticipated third season of Mystery Road, which is set to go back to where it all started with Detective Jay Swan in Mystery Road: Origin (ABC). Coming soon in film are Jub Clerc's feature debut Sweet As, as well as We are Still Here, the joint anthology feature made by eight teams as a co-production with the support of the New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC) and the First Nations Department. In documentary, the upcoming slate includes feature documentaries Alick and Albert and Larapinta (NITV), as well as the six-part series Our Law (NITV), set in Australia's first and only First Nations-run police station.
Mason said, 2022 is shaping up to be an exciting year, both in production and also the fantastic releases across various platforms. I would encourage the sector to continue thinking about how they can take that same collaborative, resilient and adaptable spirit they've demonstrated throughout two years of this pandemic, and bring it into the year ahead. We know it's tough as we head into a third year, and we will continue to look at how we can best support the industry to deal with the various challenges.
FILM According to data from the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia (MPDAA) and Numero, Australian films took $71.5 million at the local box office, 11.8% of the total share. This result came during a year that continued to see sudden lockdowns particularly in NSW and Victoria, which traditionally represent over half of the domestic box office. In 2021, 52 Australian films were released, and 513 foreign titles including large studio tentpoles that had been held back by
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
15/06/2026
Detach from Direct-Attached: How Remote Editing with EVO Keeps Creative Teams Mo...
14/06/2026
Library captures 1960s R&B/pop drum sound
Following on from their recent wave of plug-in effects, Iconic Instruments have just launched an all-new virtual d...
14/06/2026
HBO Comedy Rooster Shot with URSA Cine 17K 65
Brie Clayton June 14, 2026
0 Comments
Large format brings viewers intimately close to characters.
Black...
13/06/2026
Latest expansion pack includes 252 presets
Devious Machines have recently introduced another expansion for their powerful multi-effects plug-in, Infiltrator...
13/06/2026
Create custom DAW/plug-in controllers using prompts
MetaGrid have recently introduced an all-new AI Builder function to their touchscreen-based control surf...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production, Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it has given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what o...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
11 02 2022 - Media release CEO's 2021 Year in Review and 2022 Preview 
