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Australia
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Release Date: November 26, 2008
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham, Jack Thompson, Bryan Brown
Language: English
Country: United States
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Australia is an Australian period epic film directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. The screenplay was written by Luhrmann and screenwriter Stuart Beattie, with Ronald Harwood also later credited. The story takes place before and during the bombing of Darwin in Australia during World War II. Production took place in Sydney, Darwin, Kununurra, and Bowen.
The movie was to be released on 13 November 2008 in Australia and 16 November 2008 in the United States; however, Fox announced that it had pushed back the release dates in both Australia and the United States to 26 November 2008, with subsequent worldwide release dates throughout late December and January 2009.
In Northern Australia in 1939, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman), an English aristocrat, inherits a cattle station southwest of Darwin, owned by her late husband. When Australian cattle barons plot to take her land, she reluctantly joins forces with a rough-hewn stock-man, the Drover (Hugh Jackman) to drive the cattle across hundreds of miles of the country’s most unforgiving land, only to still face the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese forces that had attacked Pearl Harbor only months earlier.
Cast:
- Nicole Kidman as Lady Sarah Ashley, an English aristocrat who inherits the cattle station Faraway Downs in Australia
- Hugh Jackman as an (unnamed) Australian drover who helps Lady Sarah Ashley move the cattle across the property
- David Wenham as Neil Fletcher, a station manager who plans to take Faraway Downs from Lady Sarah Ashley
- Jack Thompson as Kipling Flynn, an alcoholic accountant who enjoys a luxurious lifestyle
- Bryan Brown as King Carney, a cattle baron who owns much of the land in northern Australia
- Brandon Walters as the drover’s assistant Nullah, a young boy who helps drive the cattle for Lady Sarah Ashley David Gulpilil as King George, a magic tribal elder
- Essie Davis as Cath Carney
- Ben Mendelsohn as Captain Dutton
- Bill Hunter as Sloop Skipper
- Barry Otto as Administrator Allsop
- David Ngoombujarra as Magarri
- Bruce Spence as Dr Barker
- John Jarratt as Sergeant
- Max Cullen as old drunk
- Ray Barrett as Bull
- Arthur Dignam as Father Benedict
- Sandy Gore as Gloria Carney
- James Hong as Carney Manservant
- Jacek Koman as Ivan
- Wah Yuen as Sing Song
- John Walton as Carney Boy #2
Tourism Western Australia spent $1 million on a campaign linked with the release of Australia in the United States, Canada, Japan, Europe and South Korea that ties in with an international Tourism Australia plan. Concerned about the recession and fluctuating international fuel prices, the tourism industry hopes that Luhrmann’s film will deliver visitors from all over the world in the same kind of numbers that came to the country following the 1986 release of Crocodile Dundee and the significant increase in visitors to New Zealand since 2001, after the release of the Lord of the Rings films.
Federal Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson said, “This movie will potentially be seen by tens of millions of people, and it will bring life to little-known aspects of Australia’s extraordinary natural environment, history and indigenous culture”. Tourism Australia is working with Luhrmann and 20th Century Fox on a publicity campaign titled, “See the Movie, See the Country”, based on movie maps and location guides to transform the film into “a real-life travel adventure”. In addition, the director made a $50 million series of commercials promoting the country.
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