As unlikely as it may sound, the box office for Canadian features in 2004 moved significantly closer to Telefilm Canada’s goal of domestic productions accounting for 5% of the overall theatrical take. New statistics from Telefilm show Canuck flicks claiming 4.6% of the overall Canadian box office in 2004 as of Dec. 9, compared to 3.8% around this point in 2003.

The 4.6% figure will dip a little with the addition of box-office receipts from releases in the last three weeks of 2004, when Hollywood unleashed a number of tent-pole movies, including Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Ocean’s Twelve, The Aviator and Meet the Fockers. With three weeks remaining in 2004, the overall Canadian box office stood at $849 million, off the previous year’s pace by $100 million, much of which will have been made up over the holidays. But the box office for domestic pictures was already nearly $5 million higher than in all of 2003, up to $39.2 million from $34.4 million.

What makes this surprising is that 2003 had a peculiarly high number of domestic blockbusters, with Séraphin ($9.6 million in box office), La Grande séduction ($7.6 million), Les Invasions barbares ($5.9 million) and Mambo Italiano ($5.1 million) all clearing the $5-million plateau (based on receipts from Nov. 8, 2002 to Nov. 6, 2003).

In 2004, the only Canuck film to accomplish that feat was Resident Evil: Apocalypse, with $6.2 million in receipts. The sci-fi flick based on a video game has dubious Cancon, but is an 80/20 Canada/U.K. copro that was shot in Toronto, with 60% of FX work done locally, and with a domestic release through Alliance Atlantis.

While few Canadian films did spectacularly in 2004, there were a greater number of solid performers: every film in the top 10 surpassed the $1-million mark, often cited as the benchmark for success in this country. While only five films in 2003 made that grade, there were even films that passed $1 million at the till but failed to crack the top 10, such as CHUM’s much-hyped teen sex romp Going the Distance.

The lion’s share of the credit for the strong domestic results again goes to filmmakers and distribs from Quebec. Eight of the year’s top 10 Canuck flicks were from la belle province, as in 2003. While none of these films is an auteur pièce de maître likely to snag international awards a la Invasions barbares, they are solid examples of popular genre movies, which is the kind of film Telefilm has said it wants to increasingly support. These include: comedies (Camping Sauvage, Elvis Gratton XXX), sci-fi (Dans une galaxie près de chez vous), human drama (Elles étaient cinq), children’s (The Blue Butterfly), thrillers (Le Dernier tunnel, Monica la mitraille), and an epic (Nouvelle France).

Despite a stellar 2003, overall French-language box office for domestic films held strong at $27.2 million in 2004, and, as of Dec. 9, market share was up to 20.8% from 19.1% in all of 2003. Meanwhile, market share for English-Canadian films was up as well but still very small, jumping to 1.7% from 0.9% in 2003, with box office increasing notably to $12 million from $7.3 million.

So, as executive director Wayne Clarkson looks to take over the reins of Telefilm from the departed Richard Stursberg on Jan. 17, Quebec filmmaking remains strong, while the English-Canadian industry is still looking for solutions.

The only other English-language feature to make Canada’s Top 10, along with Resident Evil, was the documentary The Corporation, from distrib Mongrel Media, which rode the trend of politically left docs to become the most successful all-Canadian nonfiction feature ever, with $1.5 million in box office.

In terms of the overall box office in Canada, Alliance Atlantis led the way for a third straight year with a Lord of the Rings film, part of its output deal with New Line Cinema, which is up for renewal in 2006. The trilogy’s concluding entry, The Return of the King, led all takers with a phenomenal $55.3 million in receipts.