For a brief moment there, it felt like Baz Luhrmann held the world in his hands. Coming off the incredible success of “Moulin Rouge!,” Luhrmann seemed poised to solidify his cultural dominance with “Australia,” a sweeping historical epic with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman at the peak of their box office star power. So when the film only grossed $49M domestic against its $130M budget, it seemed to be a film better resigned to the dust bin of blockbuster history.
Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Elvis’ To Debut At This Year’s Cannes Film Festival
Which is why Luhrmann caught audiences off-guard when he announced his decision to release “Faraway Downs,” a six-part miniseries that reworks “Australia” into a new format and features no new material. In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, Luhrmann shared the above details about his old-new show and was candid about his desire to go back and address some of the unfinished business he had with “Australia.” “For various reasons that aren’t worth going into, I never got to finish it ultimately the way I wanted to,” the director explained.
As the article notes, one of the most damning obstacles for the original feature was Fox’s unwillingness to move the release date, even as the budget and production timeline began to put the finished product at risk. This makes “Faraway Downs” a reunion of sorts with Fox, as the series is set to air domestically on Hulu, a fellow Disney property.
And while the critical response to “Australia” obviously still stings Luhrmann a little — “I can’t get bitter or angry. The press, commentators, do their job: some are good at it, some are not good at it.” — this does appear to be his chance at redemption for a passion project that he never got right. It also seems to confirm that Zack Snyder‘s reworking of the “Justice League” movie is, indeed, the beginning of a filmmaker trend and not an isolated incident.