25 June 2003
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Alexander
the Great eyes Broken Hill
By Rebecca
Ker in Broken Hill
IT'S a Hollywood secret of epic proportions and is on the lips of 21,000 Broken Hill residents – will the Outback mining city be the site for a big-budget film of Alexander the Great?
They hope their question will be answered early today, with the hugely anticipated arrival in their midst of celebrated Australian director Baz Luhrmann and veteran Hollywood producer Dino De Laurentiis.
They hope the film heavyweights have come to deliver good news – that the film about one of history's greatest figures, to star Nicole Kidman and Leonardo DiCaprio, will be filmed in their backyard.
Andrew Plumer, project co-ordinator of Film Broken Hill, established last year to promote the region as a film destination, said Luhrmann and his location manager Phillip Roope visited Broken Hill in March.
"Today (Wednesday) we are having a meeting to welcome Baz and Dino to town and let them know that we are very, very interested in hosting the film, should it come here," he said.
"This is the culmination of a series of location surveys in the region and will take in potential sites in and around Broken Hill.
"This is a significant milestone for Film Broken Hill, but we are not there yet and there is still a long way to go."
With a budget reportedly topping $300 million, the film will require thousands of extras and huge sets.
Luhrmann and De Laurentiis had planned to film Alexander the Great in Morocco but began searching for new locations in Australia following suicide attacks in Casablanca.
Several films have been made around the Outback New South Wales town, most notably Mad Max.
Broken Hill Mayor Ron Page said securing the new Hollywood blockbuster would motivate the city and show there was more to life than mining.
"It would be nice to think that we are it . . . the location," he said.
"As a city we would give it all the support needed to make it a success."
Chamber of Commerce president Sharon Hocking said she had "heard that Broken Hill has been narrowed down to the last few for this film and we are going to go all out to get this for our community".
"We believe that it's a great opportunity of further putting Broken Hill on the map," she said.
"I was told that they need 1000 horses.
"We must be in the final few and we have the ideal location."