No-one can ever accuse Baz Luhrmann of thinking small. His musical biopic Elvis, which currently has the box office all shook up, is as over-the-top and excessive as you’d expect, but to top that it’s just been announced that the director is expanding his 2008 film Australia into a full-blown TV series for Hulu.
The antipodean western starred Nicole Kidman as a posh Englishwoman introduced to the harsh life of the outback by Hugh Jackman’s rough-edged drover. It wasn’t much of a hit, so Luhrmann is re-doing it as a six-episode director’s cut re-titled Faraway Downs. This director’s cut uses existing footage but will have a new ending and soundtrack. It’ll be on Hulu in the US and Disney Plus in other countries, but the release date is yet to be confirmed.
The series will expand the storyline about Australia’s “Stolen Generations“, children cruelly removed from Aboriginal families by the government and church in the first half of the twentieth century.
While we’re used to seeing movies rebooted as TV shows, it’s unusual to see a movie actually re-edited into a TV series. The first two Godfather films, for example, were re-cut into chronological order for television broadcast in 1977.
