ninme

The Independent - High drama down under: first film to star Kidman and Crowe is axed, By Kathy Marks in Sydney

A high-profile Australian movie that was supposed to boost the country’s film industry has collapsed before the cameras started to roll, amid reports of a clash of egos between its two Oscar-winning leads, Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe.

Filming was due to start this week on Eucalyptus , a love story adapted from a novel by the Australian author, Murray Bail. But with the cast assembled at the set in Bellingen, a picturesque town in northern New South Wales, the producers abruptly announced that the £8.3m project had been postponed indefinitely.

I would have liked to see a real honest-to-god Australian movie. They’re so rare, up here. And:

“We don’t want Australian kids to grow up with American accents.” — actress Toni Collette, who this year bought a $5 million Sydney property after using an American accent in at least five of her movies

Featured in Tim Blair’s Quotes of 2004 - July

I really do make a point to watch movies that are made with, by, and in Oz/NZ. The only ones that come to mind that I’ve seen lately, that aren’t made by Americans/Brits, paid for by them, or featuring actors from America/Britain are Whale Rider and Heavenly Creatures. Both of which I really liked. Both of which are NZ. Huh. Well, it’s OZs time to shine. It’s been a while since Strictly Ballroom.

The choice of Kidman, 37, to play the 19-year-old female lead had already required drastic rewriting. The novel - which won Bail an Australian literary prize, the Miles Franklin Award - revolves around an impossible test set by the woman’s father, who will only allow her to marry a man able to name each of hundreds of eucalyptus species on his farm.

You know, there are other actors in Australia besides Nicole Kidman. I wish Hollywood would get it through their thick skulls that Americans are capable of watching a movie from another (gasp) country that has non-American actors. (Nicole Kidman is basically an American. She was born in America, she lives in America, she married and American…)

Update:

For god sake, they want to replace Nicole Kidman with Scarlett Johansen? I know I called Nicole and American, but at least she speaks with a bloody Australian accent. Are there no Australian actresses besides Nicole Kidman they could have used? Surely they are. How insulting this is to them, especially when it was supposed to be “the flagship of the industry”. Hah.