When a Man in a Trench Coat Hands a Marvel Script Over In a Manila Envelope
Cairns is getting a film studio, Amazon's 'Wheel of Time', 'The Eternals' debuts with a 73% Fresh rating
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🍿 What’s Shaking 🍿
🍿 Princess Pictures has withdrawn from an anthology series it was developing with SBS, which was set to focus on stories from the migrant community. The production company has previously worked on TV shows with John Safran and Chris Lilley, both known for repeatedly using Blackface and Brownface in their shows. Cinespace, another supporter of the project, has also stepped down. The withdrawals come after a petition against the series attracted over 2,400 signatures.
🍿 Cairns is getting a film studio, with construction expected to start next year. Queensland has hosted a number of Hollywood blockbusters including ‘Thor: Ragnarok’, ‘Scooby-Doo’, ‘Muriel’s Wedding’ and ‘Aquaman’. ‘Joe Exotic’, a scripted series based on a podcast, began filming in Queensland in July.
Why it matters: Australia has become a hotbed for productions, helped by ongoing Federal and State Government tax incentives. Screen Queensland says the state secured 41 domestic and international productions in 2020-2021, a record high.
🍿 I had no idea Amazon has spent the past few years working on ‘Wheel of Time’ an ambitious, fantasy epic TV series it hopes will rival and surpass cultural darling, ‘Game of Thrones’. Each episode reportedly had a budget of over US$10m, compared to ‘Game of Thrones’ where HBO forked out about US$6m per episode. The series is set to be released in November and stars Rosamund Pike and Australian actor Madeleine Madden.
INTERESTINGLY: Amazon is hiring a post productions exec to “support local originals movies” produced in Australia and New Zealand 👀👀👀
🍿 In tragic news, Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of movie ‘Rust’. Per the LA Times, several crew members had walked off set prior to the incident, citing safety issues and working conditions.
Elsewhere: The Hollywood Reporter does a deep dive into on-set gun safety.
🍿‘The Eternals’, which releases in Australia next week, has been certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes at 73%. It’s the lowest since 2013’s ‘Thor: The Dark World’ (66%), but mostly on par with ‘Black Widow’ (79%) and ‘The Avengers: Age of Ultron’ (76%). It sounds like it’s not your typical Marvel movie (Twitterverse says it’s different like ‘The Last Jedi’ was to Star Wars — I’m pretty excited). I loved Chloe Zhao’s ‘Nomadland’ so am super interested to see where she takes this. I am also a huge Gemma Chan stan.
Related: Elle has a profile on the women of ‘The Eternals’ where Lauren Ridloff talks about a man in a trench coat “who’d come over to my house at 11 at night with new script pages, in a manila envelope.” To get the new pages she had to trade them with the old script pages. 😂😂
🥞 Behind the Bun 🥞
I CAN’T with these photos of the new Indiana Jones, filming has occurred in Italy with actors dressed in Roman costumes which might indicate time travelling. Either way, I’m sure it won’t have as many CGI swinging monkeys as ‘Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’!!
🍿 Last Shakes 🍿
Mining magnate Andrew Forrest is starting a production company. Hayden Christensen will appear in the Ahsoka live action series, joining Rosario Dawson. Vin Diesel walked Meadow Walker down the aisle (I’m not crying, you are 😭). DC are really doing a multiverse — Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck are set to put the Bat-cowls back on.
🐶 Pupdate 🐶
Warmest virtual hugs
frankie’s MILKSHAKE CLUB
