It’s Hugh Jackman to the rescue! Proving that he doesn’t just play a superhero in the X-Men films, Hugh has manfully leapt into the void created when Russell Crowe left Baz Luhrmann’s next film.
Without a second’s thought for his personal cinematic safety, brave Hugh flung himself into a starring role alongside Nicole Kidman in the as-yet-unnamed World War Two-set romantic epic. It’s just in the nick of time, too, as Luhrmann starts shooting the film in… wait… hold on… February next year?
Okay, so perhaps it wasn’t quite as desperate as that. But it’s the first bit of good news Luhrmann has had on the film to date. He’s been hard at work crafting the script with Collateral’s Stuart Beattie and The Pianist’s Ronald Harwood and will start pre-production in October.
"This is a hugely ambitious marriage between Fox, the director and the principal actors,” explained Luhrmann to Variety. “As we tried to bring the budget to the right place and arrange shooting in the capricious weather in northern Australia, it was necessary that the studio and the actor come to a resolution. They got close, but when it came to a point where it was not resolved, the No. 1 thing to do was set an actor in that role."
“That role” is the part of a hardened cattle rancher who comes to the aid of Kidman’s English aristocrat when she’s threatened by unscrupulous livestock barons. The pair must drive her cows across hundreds of miles of arid Australian desert, only to find that their final destination – Darwin – is under attack by the Japanese. With any luck, Luhrmann will actually get to make it at last. But couldn’t he at least tell us what it’s called? Go on… We’ll accept the name in the style of Give Us A Clue. Two words? One? Sounds like?