Director Wayne Blair's film The Sapphires was a phenomenon in 2012 – a box office hit that won 12 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards, a soundtrack album that went double platinum and sales around the world.

Now the upbeat film about an Aboriginal girl group is heading to television.

Goalpost Pictures and Sticky Pictures are in the final stages of developing an animated TV series for children with the ABC – 26 22-minute episodes that will blend "comedy and character-driven drama with great musical elements".

The series will follow musical Aboriginal teenagers Gail, Cynthia, Julie and Kay in a fictional rural Australian town.

"The Sapphires has been a wonderful journey and we are delighted Sticky Pictures is partnering with us to reach a brand new audience," says producer Kylie Du Fresne.

"We are thrilled to be working again with writers Tony Briggs and Keith Thompson; the magic that was created on screen for the original movie looks certain to appear again with the TV series, which, like the movie, will have a phenomenal soundtrack."

The series will be aimed at children aged seven to 12 and a family audience.

Mad Max Oscars momentum continues

Winner: production designer Colin Gibson atop the War Rig from Mad Max: Fury Road. Photo: Peter Rae

Oscar-nominated production designer Colin Gibson was wondering about all the fuss over diversity after continuing the Hollywood awards momentum for Mad Max: Fury Road at the Art Directors Guild Awards in Los Angeles at the weekend.

"Two Australians won awards," Gibson told Short Cuts on arriving back in Australia. "We can set their diversity hearts at ease. We're just much-further-south Mexicans."

Gibson won for excellence in production design in a fantasy film for Fury Road, while Deborah Riley won for excellence in a TV series for Game of Thrones.

While in high spirits, Gibson did not see the win as a pointer to the Academy Awards on February 28 given the guild also named The Revenant as winner for period film and The Martian for contemporary film.

"The great joy of the design guild awards is they divide the films into three categories," he said. "It was really very nice but it was more like a kids birthday party – every child wins a prize."

While 10 international bookies have him odds-on favourite to win at the Oscars, Gibson is measured about his chances.

"I'm hoping there's no chance in hell because I've run out of speeches," he says. "I can only tell the same joke so many times."

The Fury Road momentum includes another odds-on Oscars favourite, Margaret Sixel, winning best editing for a dramatic feature film at the American Cinema Editors Awards, with The Big Short winning the comedy or musical category.

Dream outcome for AACTA International Awards

Tom Hardy in Mad Max: Fury Road.Photo: Jasin Boland

The head of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts, Damien Trewhella, calls it a "dream outcome".

For the first time in the five years of the academy's international awards, the top prize has gone to an Australian film – Mad Max: Fury Road.

"To have an Australian film that's genuinely regarded by so many as the best in the world is really something," Trewhella said from Los Angeles. "Not just our members but the American Film Institute came to the same conclusion, as have any number of critics and film enthusiasts."

As well as best film, Fury Road won best direction for George Miller, with Cate Blanchett winning best actress for Carol, Leonardo DiCaprio best actor for The Revenant, Rooney Mara best supporting actress for Carol, Mark Rylance best supporting actor for Bridge of Spies and Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer best screenplay for Spotlight.

But with so much home-town support for Fury Road, will the AACTA win be in any way a predictor for best picture at the Oscars?

"It's doing really well through the guild awards which suggests very strong prospects come the Oscars in those categories," said Trewhella.

"But best film is very hard. It's quite wide open at this point but we obviously endorse and support Fury Road all the way."

Smut sells for Dirty Grandpa

Zac Efron and Robert De Niro in Dirty Grandpa.

The reviews for Dirty Grandpa were lacerating. "Unapologetic lowbrow smut, directed with little finesse," wrote Fairfax's Jake Wilson about the Zac Efron-Robert de Niro comedy.

A "crass, derivative, half-baked excuse for an odd-couple comedy," wrote the News Corporation's Vicky Roach. "Crass, gross and easy to dismiss as R-rated rubbish," said 3AW's Jim Schembri.

Yet Dirty Grandpa opened on top of the Australian box office at the weekend, taking $2.4 million with a solid cinema average of $10,500. It easily outsold The Revenant, which took $1.6 million to reach $15.9 million on its fourth weekend.

Three far superior and much better reviewed movies than Dirty Grandpa opened decently but without fireworks – Spotlight took $896,000 (averaging $8500), Room took $247,000 on a smaller release (averaging $3900) and Australia's Looking For Grace just cracked the top 20 on limited release with $99,000 ($3800).

The best cinema average was the Hong Kong martial arts film Ip Man 3, which had an impressive $12,600 on its second weekend in 19 cinemas.

Rival critics awards to name best film

The country's two critics bodies are lining up to announce their year's best film.

The Film Critics Circle of Australia, which has its awards in Sydney on February 23, has six contenders for best film – The Dressmaker, Holding the Man, Last Cab to Darwin, Mad Max: Fury Road, Paper Planes and Tanna.

The Australian Film Critics Association, which holds its awards in Melbourne on February 16, has a slightly different mix of five films competing for the top prize – The Dressmaker, Holding the Man, Last Cab to Darwin, Mad Max: Fury Road and Partisan.

ACMI's creative hub

Melbourne's Australian Centre for the Moving Image will establish a "creative hub" for filmmakers, scriptwriters, game and app developers, graphic and web designers, writers and visual artists with $587,000 in funding from the state government.

Called ACMI X, the 60-seat "creative co-working space" will be in Southbank – reputedly the first such facility to be set up by a major cultural institution in the country.

The idea is to "offer affordable accommodation to creative practitioners and small creative companies, across a range of disciplines, in a 2000-square metre state-of-the-art office space" in Kavanagh Street.

A full-time producer will run a program of networking and professional development events.

"The creative economy has moved centre stage, and cultural institutions like ours need to explore new ways of both supporting and collaborating with the next generation of creative talent," says ACMI chief executive Katrina Sedgwick.

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