Geng Ho In Malaysia
Saturday, June 6th, 2009
Have you ever heard of someone doing a “happy dance” over a $1.8 million USD box office gross? Well, they’re doing one in Kuala Lumpur, where Les Copaque’s first animated feature film “Geng” has snagged that revenue with a $1.15 million USD production budget and an $18,000 USD P&A expense, making Malaysian box office history in the process. Think about it: an entire 3D animated feature film produced for less than the cost of a major studio minute, and marketed for less than the cost of a Hollywood audio retake! “Geng” received a relatively “wide” release on 56 out of 83 Malaysian movie screens. This sounds like kid’s play compared to North America’s 39,000+ screens, but becomes compelling when you consider that a wide release in the U.S. still hits only about 10% of available screens (Pixar’s “Up” showed on 3,818 this weekend), while “Geng” had a Malaysian screen coverage of almost 70%. Top that off with a return-on-investment of over 50% (and counting), with plans to release the film in Brunei, Indonesia and India - and you have a pretty remarkable example of low-budget animated feature film success.
What makes this story even more amazing is that “Geng” owes its existence to the talents of a visionary producer, a few Malaysian animation entreprenuers and a team of 40 recent animation school graduates, using off-the-shelf software and cloned PCs. The film benefited from strong word of mouth among all age groups, and owes much to the popularity of its characters Upin & Ipin. Les Copaque seeded the ground well on this front by releasing a TV series based upon the mischievous twins, even as the feature film was in full production. Broadcast during Ramadan in 2007, the Upin & Ipin shows scored approximately 1.5 million Malaysian viewers per episode. These ratings resulted in Les Copaque producing 12 more episodes for 2008, and a run of 42 episodes for 2009. Unsurprisingly, the studio’s next animated feature film focuses entirely upon the Upin & Ipin characters, in a stereoscopic 3D production slated for 2011.
You can read more about the making of “Geng” here. Truly a case study in unmined territory and guerilla filmmaking.
