Australia is a generous nation. So generous that we keep turning the biggest movie-going day of the year into a celebration of New Zealand filmmaking.
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Since 2000, Boxing Days have been dominated by Kiwi director Peter Jackson, usually with one of his epic fantasy blockbusters based on a Tolkien novel. And it is destined to happen again this year as the Hobbit trilogy closes with The Battle of the Five Armies.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies review
Last year, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug took half its box office of $37.8 million - nothing desolate about that - in just the first week. That was twice as much as the next most successful movie, Frozen.
The year before, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey took twice as much as second-placed Les Miserables in its first week.
From 2001 to 2003, the Lord of the Rings trilogy roared like a crazed orc to ticket sales worth $142.5 million. The three movies are still among the top 11 earners in Australian box office history. While the first two Hobbit movies have not been so successful - taking a combined $80.5 million – they still rank 13th and 24th on a list topped by Avatar.
But Jackson has also directed other movies that have featured prominently at this time of year. In 2005, King Kong was second only to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. In 2009, The Lovely Bones was among the new releases sidelined by Avatar, that other fantasy blockbuster shot in New Zealand.
And in 2011, Jackson produced Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin, which topped the Boxing Day takings. Needless to say, it was also animated across the Tasman.
Australian filmmakers have had success at this time of the year, notably George Miller with Happy Feet (2006) and Happy Feet 2 (2011), Baz Luhrmann with Australia (which opened in November 2008) and Jonathan Teplitzky with The Railway Man (last year).
But nothing like the All Black-style domination by the well-rounded, bearded filmmaker from Wellington in nine of the last 14 years.
If it sounds like cinemas have a formula for what they offer every Boxing Day, that is not far from the truth.
As Moses returns in Exodus: Gods and Kings, it's clear Mount Hollywood must have handed down a commandment to an Australian cinema executive saying "there shall always be a Peter Jackson movie" after Christmas.
The general manager of cinema and entertainment at Event Cinemas, Peter Cody, expects The Battle of the Five Armies to be bigger than the two previous Hobbit movies as Australians unwind after Christmas and search for entertainment.
"There's something in the Australian psyche that it's the biggest week of the year," he says. "And January 1 to January 7 is close to the second biggest week."
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb review
The second commandment – a surprise considering he is well down the list of Hollywood stars from Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt – is "there shall always be a Ben Stiller comedy".
Just why Stiller's likeable but awkward characters are so popular at this time of the year is a mystery but he has starred in Meet the Parents (2000), Meet the Fockers (2004), Night at the Museum (2006), Little Fockers (2010), the god-awful Tower Heist (2011) and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (last year).
This year it is Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, another comedy that will be all the more poignant for the late Robin Williams returning as Teddy Roosevelt.
The Water Diviner review
The third commandment is "there shall always be a quality drama set against the backdrop of war".
Again, war is a strange subject for the holidays but many of these movies are traditionally contending for Oscars in the new year. And they give families the chance to see battles that make their own domestic conflicts over Christmas dinner seem inconsequential.
Thus cinemas have delivered Atonement (2007), Australia (2008), The King's Speech (2010), War Horse (2011), the musical Les Miserables (2012) and Railway Man (last year).
This year it's Russell Crowe's The Water Diviner, which him playing a stoic farmer who heads to Turkey after World War I to search for his three missing sons. And even if he was once a Kiwi too, it is a very Australian story that opens the commemorations of the Gallipoli centenary.
"You always want to save your most commercial films for Boxing Day and this is a very commercial movie," says distributor Troy Lum, who is also one of the film's producers. "We saw it with Philomena last year: if you have a film playing to an adult audience at Christmas, people will come in great numbers if it's good enough."
Big Hero 6 review
The fourth commandment is "there shall always be a big animated movie for parents to take the kids to".
In the past it has come from Pixar, with Monsters Inc (2001) and The Incredibles (2004). Or Aardman, with Chicken Run (2000) and Flushed Away (2006). Or another animation studio, with Happy Feet (2006), Alvin and the Chipmunks (2009) and Happy Feet 2 (2011).
But a revived Disney has roared back into the holiday business with the live-action-meets-animated Enchanted (2007) then the animated Wreck It Ralph (2012) and Frozen (last year).
This year: Disney's Big Hero 6 is a lively crowd-pleaser about a boy who, with the help of a healing robot, forms a band of unlikely superheroes.
"There shall always be an upmarket British drama for an older, more discerning audience," is the fifth commandment.
Look at all the quality – and polished English accents – since 2000: Bright Young Things, Mrs Henderson Presents, The Queen, Atonement, Frost/Nixon (from Britain and the US), Nowhere Boy, The King's Speech, The Iron Lady, Quartet and Philomena.
This year it's Mike Leigh's Mr Turner, a moving bio-pic of painter J.M.W. Turner, starring Timothy Spall.
Do British immigrants in Australia pine for their own drama - set in their own cooler climes – over the holidays? Or is it just that the Brits make so many great dramas and Boxing Day is the perfect time to open the best?
Commandment six: "There shall often be a Bill Murray comedy".
Again, he is not the biggest star around but his cantankerous characters with a soft centre have featured on Boxing Day in Charlie's Angels (2000), Lost in Translation (2003) and Broken Flowers (2005).
This year Murray stars in St Vincent, a warm-hearted comedy about a misanthropic war veteran who befriends a boy who moves in next door.
There is no sign this Boxing Day of the commandment "there shall usually be a romantic comedy" – even though it has been a popular option since that Christmas classic Love Actually in 2003.
And in a sign of changing times in cinemas, there is nothing to satisfy the commandment "there shall always be a classy foreign-language film for art-house audiences". Unless you count the Elvish in The Hobbit, that is.
As cinema-going becomes more focused on "events" and art houses program yet more mainstream movies, niche foreign language films have been marginalised over the holidays, despite past success for Amelie, Goodbye Lenin, A Very Long Engagement, Two Days In Paris, I've Loved You So Long and The Skin I Live In.
While the best Boxing Day line-up in recent times has arguably included the final Lord of the Rings, Love Actually and Lost in Translation in 2003, the breadth of new movies and higher ticket prices brought record ticket sales of $44.9 million last year.
But with annual box office down 3 per cent to the end of November, cinema executives will be hoping for one more commandment: "there shall always be huge audiences, without fail, for movies on Boxing Day".
