8 May 2003
News.com.au (from The Daily Telegraph) - click
here for original source
Baz homeward bound
Baz Luhrmann plans to shoot his next film in Australia.
The Moulin Rouge maestro will film Alexander The Great in Australia because he can't get insurance on the principal actors in Morocco and Jordan.
So far, the only big names slated for his epic are Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicole Kidman. The film, based on Valerio Manfredi's trilogy of novels about the Macedonian marvel Alexander the Great, also had an off-screen win this week.
The rival Oliver Stone project, starring Colin Farrell and now Anthony Hopkins, dropped 'The Great' from its title to become merely Alexander.
The film industry is buzzing on which project will get to the screen first.
Invariably, the first of two similarly-themed films to the screen take most of the spoils.
And there's speculation in Los Angeles that DiCaprio will walk from Luhrmann's film as soon as Stone's begins production.
The Bodey Line hopes Baz gets cracking because though he's much-maligned, he's rightly becoming the Dick Smith of the Australian film industry, with only his William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet shooting off-shore (and you've got to admit, Campbell Parade probably wouldn't have worked as well as those Mexican boulevards).
When the prospect of the fourth Mad Max instalment - now off the boil - shooting in Namibia surfaced, it was important for some of our big names to stand up and be counted. Luhrmann looks as though he's doing that.
God knows how, though. In a recent interview with Variety, he said he expected to soon announce the songwriting team for Strictly Ballroom's 2005 run on Broadway and decide which Las Vegas casino will get his Moulin Rouge musical (go the Bellagio, Baz). And, of course, his wife, Catherine Martin is expecting a child.
Meanwhile, The Bodey Line will probably watch TV tonight and maybe go to the pub on the weekend.
The Daily Telegraph