Hugh Jackman is a hard man to kill. Just ask director Baz Luhrmann, who has buckled in the face of negative test screenings and reshot the final scenes of his epic movie
Australia to resurrect his leading man.
The talks between Luhrmann and the various suits at 20th Century Fox, which has wagered $US130 million ($190 million) on the most expensive Australian film of all time, were described as "intense". You can see why. With just 15 days to go before the film's release, no one has seen a finished print. Luhrmann is believed to be living in a caravan at a post-production facility and handing in his homework reel by reel.
Only time will tell if the result is
Gone With The Wind on steroids or
Out Of Africa lite.
The studio isn't leaving anything to chance. Today Jackman and Nicole Kidman will be seen on
The Oprah Winfrey Show telling Americans why
Australia is by far the best thing since Barack Obama. Maybe better. Nic shows Oprah her baby photos and Hugh spends a lot of time being dashing.
Luhrmann is not known as a man who likes to compromise, so his decision to reshoot the final scenes underlines how much is riding on
Australia's success. Money, reputation and the future of the Australian tourism industry to name but three.
But in bringing Huggable Hugh back from the dead and opting for a happy ending, is he abandoning the very blueprint that made him famous?
In 1990, Luhrmann's star was already on the rise when he created an acclaimed production of
La Boheme for Opera Australia. The heroine, Mimi, expires prettily in Act 4 and a light clearly went off in Baz's head. When he made his first Hollywood film - the MTV-style
Romeo + Juliet in 1996 - there might have been pressure to let Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes escape the grand guignol that traditionally claims the star-cross'd lovers and set up home on the outskirts of Verona. But Luhrmann held firm, realising that dying young and staying pretty could be box office gold. In
Moulin Rouge! he had Kidman's Satine succumb to a gorgeously art-directed bout of consumption that left teenagers everywhere sobbing.
But
Australia is a different kind of movie and Huggable Hugh is a different kind of actor. Compared to Luhrmann's campy, highly stylised Bazmark productions, the film aims to be gritty, realistic and free of showtunes. When a leading man bites the bullet in this kind of film he's, well, dead - no amount of Elton John's
Your Song is going to bring him back.
And then there's Jackman himself. He wasn't Luhrmann's first choice for the role of the "rough-hewn" drover. That was Russell Crowe, aka The Gladiator. A man who makes an agonising last act death look
good. But Crowe wanted too much money, so Luhrmann got Jackman, a man so pleasant he can sport flesh-ripping talons and still look adorable. A man who will never be mistaken for Chuck Norris after playing Peter Allen in a musical and hosting the Tony Awards not once but three times.
But if Luhrmann was disappointed to get the Tenterfield Saddler instead of Maximus, he hid it well. "There are not many actors who have an ability to pick up a Nicole Kidman, throw her on the bed and ravish her with believability," he has said in one of the interminable interviews spruiking the film. Then, in case anyone still entertained doubts about Jackman's virility: "He is also excellent with a cattle whip."
Now Luhrmann is under the whip. His film's release has been postponed by 13 days and time is running out. A massive media junket to Los Angeles has also been pushed back, leaving hundreds of entertainment journalists wondering if they will ever get their free
Australia T-shirt.
Faced with such enormous pressure, Luhrmann knows he has to hit a home run. If the final cut is about 170 minutes long as expected, he will have spent roughly three-quarters of a million dollars for every minute of screen time. That's a lot of cash for a film about a cattle drive. It is unclear how much of the budget went to Rolf Harris, who has recorded his legendary wobble board for the opening credits.
"This is crazy," Luhrmann is reported to have said. "We haven't got the iconic sound of Rolf Harris's wobble board on the music. We must be mad."
Let's hope not, Baz.
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Story by Richard Jinman for Sydney Morning Herald.
Australia will be released on November 26. You can view the Australia trailer here on TheVine.