The expectation around Australia was significant in 2008. Director Baz Luhrmann met again with Nicole Kidman after the cultural impact of the musical Moulin Rouge but the bar was very high: with a budget of 130 million, it was the most expensive Australian production of the history. When the criticism came out, it suffered a severe setback: the consensus was unanimous in describing this tribute to classic melodrama as a failed project. Fifteen years later, Luhrmann wants to turn around the reputation of his film with a remake in miniseries format titled Australia: Faraway Downs and which already has a trailer.
Australia tells the story of an English aristocrat, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman), who travels to the other side of the world to confront her capricious husband and sell an unusual asset: Faraway Downs, an immense ranch in the interior of the continent. . After the death of her husband, a ruthless landowner wants to take over her land and she joins forces with a rugged cowboy (Hugh Jackman) with whom she initially does not get along. Soon, instead of feeling like a stranger, she begins to appreciate her surroundings as she discovers her love in the middle of World War II.
Baz Luhrmann, who devised the story and wrote it with Ronald Harwood, Stuart Beattie and Richard Flanagan, has restructured the filmed material into six chapters that will arrive on November 26 at Disney.
The Australian disaster, for the record, must be put into perspective. Although it did not manage to recover what was invested, due to promotion costs and the fact that the studios do not take the total box office income, it raised 211 million around the world. In fact, in Spain it was well received: it made 15 million, being the most successful market after the United States and Germany.
Baz Luhrmann, who at that time had directed Strictly Ballroom, Romeo Juliet and Moulin Rouge, which formed his particular Red Curtain Trilogy, recovered from this slump with the direction of The Great Gatsby where he reunited with Leonardo DiCaprio after the Shakespeare adaptation and the biopic Elvis with Austin Butler and nominated for an Oscar for best picture this year.
