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International success #4

Take a look at the latest moves and news about those Aussies taking the world by storm, including Cate Blanchett, Rose Byrne, Animal Logic and Iloura.

Actor Cate Blanchett

ON SCREEN

Film

Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett will star alongside Sandra Bullock, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Mindy Kaling and Rihanna in Ocean’s Eight, an all-female reboot of Ocean’s Eleven. Original director Steven Soderbergh is producing whilst Gary Ross (The Hunger Games) will direct.

Actress Rose Byrne will star alongside James Corden in Peter Rabbit, a feature based on the beloved Beatrix Potter books that will come to life through a combination of computer generated animation and live action. The film is being produced by Sony Pictures and Australia’s Animal Logic (Happy Feet, The Lego Movie), and will be directed by Will Gluck (Easy A, Friends With Benefits).

Filming will get underway this month on Genius, National Geographic’s first-ever scripted series about the life of Albert Einstein starring Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush (The Daughter).

Directors Peter and Michael Spierig (Predestination) have lured Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren back to Australia for the first time in 50 years to star in their new supernatural feature Winchester, opposite Aussie actor Jason Clarke (Everest, Zero Dark Thirty).

Nicole Kidman’s company Blossom Films has partnered with Reese Witherspoon’s Pacific Standard again to option the film rights to Australian novelist Liane Moriarty’s Truly Madly Guilty, after producing the miniseries Big Little Lies (based on another of Moriarty’s books) together for HBO.

It was announced that producer Bruna Papandrea (Gone Girl, Wild, Not Suitable For Children) will leave her production collaboration with Reese Witherspoon and Pacific Standard in order to start a new venture.

TV

Actress Toni Collette (United States of Tara, Little Miss Sunshine, Mental) will star in and executive produce action dramedy Unit Zero for ABC in the US where she plays an unassuming CIA engineer and single mum who leads a team of newly recruited spies.

Actress Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck, 24: Live Another Day) will star opposite Joseph Fiennes and Elisabeth Moss in Hulu’s adaption of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale.

Actress Natasha Bassett (Hail, Caesar!) will portray pop princess Britney Spears in the upcoming Lifetime telemovie biopic Britney.

Actress Aisha Dee (The Saddle Club) has scored a lead role in the Freeform drama pilot Issues inspired by the life of Cosmopolitan editor Joanna Coles.

Actress Dichen Lachman (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Neighbours) has secured a role in the upcoming season of Supergirl which has moved from US network CBS to CW.

Actress Mallory Jansen (Galavant) will star in season 4 of US network ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Actor David Berry (A Place To Call Home) has been cast in the major role of Lord John Grey in the third season of the Starz series Outlander.

Simon Stone's The Daughter/Mark Rogers

OFF SCREEN

Film

Kino Lorber has acquired the US rights to Simon Stone’s feature directorial debut The Daughter for theatrical distribution during the Northern Hemisphere winter.

Momentum Pictures has secured the US rights to family film Oddball, grossing $AUD 9.3M for the film’s Australian distributor Village Roadshow.

Baz Luhrmann’s Oscar winning film Moulin Rouge! is being developed for the stage by Global Creatures who were also behind Strictly Ballroom The Musical. The stage adaptation will be written by Tony award-winning John Logan, and directed by Alex Timbers.

Another Australian classic, Muriel’s Wedding, is also being adapted into a musical by the film’s writer-director PJ Hogan for the Sydney Theatre Company, with music to be written by Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall.

TV

Aussie actor Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom) won Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his work on the Netflix series Bloodline at the 2016 Primetime Emmy Awards.

Melbourne based VFX company Illoura (Lion, The Great Gatbsy) took home an Emmy for Best Visual Effects for their work on the epic 20–minute-long battle sequence in the Game of Thrones Season 6 episode “Battle of the Bastards”.

Brisbane-born Deborah Riley also took home an Emmy (her third) for production design on Season 6 of Game of Thrones. Riley has won this award every year since she starting working on the HBO hit series in 2014, after starting her career working in roles such as assistant art director on Baz Luhrman’s Moulin Rouge!.

SLR Productions’ animated children’s series Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs will be broadcast on the UK’s POP channel from Monday 5 September. The series has also sold into China, Vietnam, Singapore, Portugal, Sweden and Africa.

Streaming service Hulu has acquired the exclusive US SVOD rights to Essential Media’s animated children series The Adventures of Bubble Bath Bay (known internationally as Sydney Sailboat). The show is already being broadcast in the US on NBCU’s Sprout channel.

Acorn TV partnered with DCD Rights to acquire Season 2 of Playmaker Media’s political thriller The Code, which will air in the US from Monday October 10.