Comic warns off the Force
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Comic Lawrence Leung has a warning as his film Sucker gets Q&A screenings around the country: "Look out Star Wars."
The comedy, loosely based on his teenage experience of learning to be a conman, is adapted from a hit stage show. It took 14 years to get it to the screen – longer than Mad Max: Fury Road – for the world premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival this year.
"It's just so bizarre sitting in the audience many years later and experiencing the story from the audience's point of view," Leung says. "That's quite fun seeing someone else playing a version of myself on screen."
YouTube comic John Luc plays Leung with Timothy Spall as a wily conman called the Professor alongside Lily Sullivan, Kat Stewart and Shaun Micallef in the coming-of-age story.
At a time of spirited discussion over the race of film casts, Leung believes it is right time for "an Asian face and voice" as star of an Australian film. But while shopping the script around, American financiers wanted to cast a white American in the main role to make the story "more universal".
"It's so funny that universal to them still means it has to have a white lead, whereas in Australia we had no resistance from anyone saying we should change the character," he says. "Everyone thinks it's authentic to the story and also it's something distinctive that hasn't been seen on the screen as yet."
Sucker will get a digital release next month, which Leung believes suits the film.
"The dynamic of cinema is changing and also audiences," he says. "I watch a lot of Netflix and a lot more people see things in the online world, especially the young audiences."
The next two Q&A screenings of Sucker are in Sydney's Hoyts Broadway on Thursday and Hoyts Blacktown on Friday.
Gods of Egypt director rejects racist term
Playing an ancient Egyptian god ... Gerard Butler in Gods of Egypt.
Director Alex Proyas has taken offence at use of the term "whitewashing" to describe the casting of his movie Gods of Egypt.
"Whitewash is a term that strongly implies racism," he says. "Trust me ... as an Egyptian immigrant coming to Australia in the '60s I know what racism is first hand."
After an online outcry over the predominantly white casting of the movie, the Australian director of Dark City, I, Robot and Knowing issued an apology, saying: "The process of casting a movie has many complicated variables but it is clear that our casting choices should have been more diverse. I sincerely apologise to those who are offended by the decisions we made."
Lionsgate, the studio releasing the movie in the US, also apologised saying: "We recognise that it is our responsibility to help ensure that casting decisions reflect the diversity and culture of the time periods portrayed.
"In this instance we failed to live up to our own standards of sensitivity and diversity, for which we sincerely apologise. Lionsgate is deeply committed to making films that reflect the diversity of our audiences. We have, can and will continue to do better."
Shot in Sydney, Gods of Egypt is a $US140 million action fantasy movie set in ancient Egypt that centres on a young thief (played by Brenton Thwaites), who enlists the help of the gods to bring his beloved (Courtney Eaton) back from the dead.
Gerard Butler, Geoffrey Rush and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau play the Egyptian gods Set, Ra and Horus.
The online outcry followed storms over racial casting of other recent movies, including Cameron Crowe's Aloha, which had Emma Stone as an Asian-American character, and Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods and Kings, which had Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton as Moses and Ramses.
While the term "whitewashing" has been used by those objecting the casting of those two movies, Proyas wants to make it clear that he considers it an offensive term that does not relate to his movie.
"I did not apologise for 'whitewashing' rather to those who have been offended by my movie's lack of sufficient diversity," he says. "There is a great difference."
Location offset set for a boost
Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop with Ridley Scott at Fox Studios. Photo: Dallas Kilponen
Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop's surprise appearance beside Ridley Scott as he announced the next Alien movie would shoot in Sydney – and possibly two more sequels after that – showed the federal government's new attitude to attracting foreign movies to this country.
Bishop said that after speaking to Scott in New York, she had brought back a proposal to cabinet that led to two big budget movies landing in Australia – Thor: Ragnarok and Alien: Covenant – by topping up the 16.5 per cent location offset so that it was equivalent to a more internationally competitive 30 per cent.
While Bishop chose her words carefully, she seemed to indicate there would be a proposal to permanently lift the location offset to 30 per cent in the next federal budget.
"We know that we're in a very competitive industry, both internationally and here in Australia," she said. "What we've done is increase the offset for these two productions that were on the table.
"We're now considering in the context of the next budget ... permanent changes to the location offset to bring them in line with the two other offsets – the post-production and the producer's offset – to ensure that we can remain competitive."
While Alien: Covenant will be based at Fox Studios, Scott has been seeking exterior locations to create a green planet – "it needs monumental stuff – monumental forests, monumental rocks" – and is known to have been impressed with Jenolan Caves and the Warrumbungles.
With the dollar dropping to a more attractive rate, more foreign productions can be expected to land in Australia next year including Hugh Jackman's The Greatest Showman on Earth, which has him playing circus founder P.T. Barnum.
Local debuts for Australian films
Sam Neill and Adrien Brody in Backtrack.
Two Australian films that have had world premieres at North American festivals will get Australian debuts at outdoor cinemas soon.
Michael Petroni's psychological thriller Backtrack, with Adrien Brody as a psychologist whose life is thrown into turmoil when he discovers the patients he has been treating are ghosts, screens at Moonlight Cinema in Melbourne's at Royal Botanic Gardens and Sydney's Centennial Park on Sunday night.
And Sue Brooks' Looking For Grace, a drama about a couple (Radha Mitchell and Richard Roxburgh) searching for their runaway teenage daughter (Odessa Young), opens the season at the St George Open Air Cinema at Sydney's Mrs Macquaries Point on January 8.
The season also includes Carol, The Danish Girl, Spotlight, Brooklyn, Hail, Caesar!, Room, Suffragette, The Hateful 8, Joy, In the Heart of the Sea, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the new version of Point Break.
Hunger pangs in cinemas
Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part II.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II stayed on top of the Australian box office last weekend – adding another $5.2 million to reach $17.8 million – but has fallen well behind ticket sales for the previous two movies in the series.
After two weekends, Part I had reached $20.8 million a year ago and Catching Fire had gone even better with $22.7 million the year before.
With Spectre adding $3.4 million to reach $25.8, the most successful of the new releases last weekend was Hotel Transylvania 2, which took $2.1 million.
Of the Australian films, The Dressmaker has reach $15.2 million and Oddball $10.8 million.
Elephant doco sells to Netflix
After screening to a warm response at international festivals, the Australian documentary Tyke Elephant Outlaw has sold to Netflix.
The film from directors Susan Lambert and Stefan Moore film has just been released on the streaming service in the US, with the international release, including Australia, next August.
The documentary tells the story of a circus elephant who went on a rampage in Honolulu in 1994, killing her trainer, before being shot. The incident ignited a global battle over the use of animals in the entertainment industry.
Jinx filmmakers for Melbourne
New York property mogul Robert Durst in The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.
Two of the team who make the groundbreaking American documentary series The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst will be keynote speakers at he Australian International Documentary Conference in Melbourne early next year.
Cinematographer and producer Marc Smerling and editor, co-writer and co-producer Zac Pontier, will be speaking at an In Conversation session about the making of The Jinx, with Smerling also presenting a masterclass.
They worked with director Andrew Jarecki on the series about the suspected crimes of a reclusive real estate heir who was subsequently charged with murder. The conference, with "true stories" as a theme, runs from February 28 to March 2.
