News

‘Combat Wombat’.

Like a Photon Creative’s animated family franchise The Tales From Sanctuary City continues to rack up overseas sales, ranking as one of Australia’s most successful exports.

The second film in the trilogy, Combat Wombat, which opened in Australian cinemas last weekend as an alternate content release, has been pre-sold to more than 100 countries by Odin’s Eye Entertainment, with more deals in negotiation.

Directed by Ricard Cussó and produced by Like a Photon’s Nadine Bates and Kristen Souvlis, the Screen Queensland-supported franchise kicked off with The Wishmas Tree. The third title, Daisy Quokka: World’s Scariest Animal, is in post.

“The Tales From Sanctuary City franchise has been amongst our top selling titles over the past 18 months,” Odin’s Eye’s Michael Favelle tells If.

“The confidence that our distribution partners have shown has been phenomenal with several distributors snapping up the complete franchise as...

Todd Abbott.

The ABC has officially announced the appointment of Todd Abbott as head of comedy, succeeding Rick Kalowski who departed the broadcaster in February.

Abbott joined the ABC in July from Guesswork Television, where he was creative director. He has worked with the ABC previously on shows like Rosehaven, Frayed and The Weekly with Charlie Pickering.

Most recently for Guesswork, Abbott produced Stan’s pandemic stand-up special, the Australian Lockdown Comedy Festival, and a series of one-hour comedy specials for Amazon Prime Video, including comedians Celia Pacquola, Judith Lucy, Lano & Woodley, Tom Walker and Dilruk Jayasinha.

Abbott’s other credits include The Dream with Roy & Hg, Please Like Me, a reimagining of Geoffrey Robertson’s Hypotheticals and Ten’s reboot of Rove, Judith Lucy’s Spiritual Journey and Micallef Tonight.

At the ABC, he will lead the commissioning and creative execution of comedy programs across multiple platforms.

ABC head of drama,...

Amazon has scheduled its first scripted Australian Amazon Original series, Back to the Rafters, which will launch on Prime Video in Australia and around the world. Production on the series is expected to start next year.

Back to the Rafters offers the next chapter in the story of the Rafter family, who appeared for six years in one of Australia’s most popular drama series, Packed to the Rafters. At its center were parents Dave and Julie, working to balance their own journey as a couple with the ups and downs of raising a family into adulthood.

Set to begin production in Sydney in 2020, Back to the Rafters is produced by Seven Studios and will feature original principal cast members Rebecca Gibney (Julie Rafter), Erik Thomson (Dave Rafter), Jessica Marais (Rachel Rafter), Hugh Sheridan (Ben Rafter), Angus McLaren (Nathan Rafter), Michael Caton (Ted Taylor) and George Houvardas (Nick “Carbo” Karandonis...

Amazon has ordered its latest Australian original with a docuseries following the Australian Men’s Cricket Team.

The Svod service has ordered The Test: A New Era for Australia’s Team, which will give viewers a behind-the-scenes at one of the world’s best cricket teams which fell from grace before reclaiming their title.

The series, which will air in early 2020, picks up after a ball tampering controversy in South Africa and begins with the appointment of Justin Langer as coach before showing how they won the 2019 Ashes series.

The Test is produced by CA Films in partnership with Australian production company Whooshka Media and directed by Adrian Brown.

It is the latest Amazon original in Australia after the company ordered non-scripted series Lol: Last One Laughing, hosted and executive produced by Rebel Wilson earlier this year as well as a slew of Australian stand-up comedy specials from the likes of Tom Gleeson,...

‘Packed to the Rafters.’

Seven Studios is preparing to revive Packed to the Rafters, the first Australian drama commission by Amazon Prime Video.

Bevan Lee, who created the family comedy-drama which ran for six seasons on the Seven Network, is overseeing the reboot which is in pre-production.

Katherine Thomson is among the writing team and there will potentially be three series, each six episodes, If understands.

Virtually all members of the original cast including Rebecca Gibney, Erik Thomson, Hugh Sheridan, Jessica Marais, Ryan Corr, Jessica McNamee, Angus McLaren and James Stewart are returning, If believes.

Yet to be announced, the deal for the new series which has the working title Back to the Rafters was first mooted in September.

Amazon Prime has also acquired the streaming rights to the original series which was produced by Jo Porter for Seven Productions. The two hour finale in 2013, which saw Dave and Julie...

‘Lunatics’. (Photo: Amelia Entertainment)

Since 2017, we have been studying the availability of local content on the major subscription streaming services operating in Australia. Our latest report, which examines Netflix, Stan and for the first time, Amazon Prime Video, confirms that the level of local content on these services remains modest, although the number of original productions is growing.

There is also increasing variation between the three services in terms of the kind, age, and genre mix of Australian-made material they carry. The entry of Disney+ and Apple TV+ next month will add new complexity to this rapidly changing market.

We were surprised to learn how much Australian content Amazon Prime Video offers (over 400 Australian titles). However, Amazon is significantly different from Stan and Netflix for several reasons, which make direct comparisons between these services misleading.

Netflix: few local titles, but increasing investment

With an estimated audience of 11 million Australians, Netflix is the clear market leader.

Celia Pacquola.

Amazon has commissioned Guesswork Television to produce a series of stand-up comedy specials from ten Australian comedians.

The specials include Tom Gleeson’s Joy; Celia Pacquola’s All Talk; Tommy Little’s Self-Diagnosed Genius; Judith Lucy’s Judith Lucy vs Men; Lano & Woodley’s Fly; Anne Edmonds’ What’s Wrong With You?; Zoë Coombs Marr’s Bossy Bottom; Tom Walker’s Very Very, Dilruk Jayasinha’s Live and Alice Fraser’s Savage.

“Amazon’s comedy series and stand-up specials have excited our customers around the world, and we’re looking forward to welcoming this talented group of Australian comedians to the Prime Video family,” said Amazon Studios head of international originals James Farrell.

“These are hilarious performances that we know our customers will love in Australia and around the world.”

The specials will be filmed at The Coopers Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne. Tickets are available here. They’re...

In today’s roundup, HBO’s “Watchmen” gets a premiere date and Netflix has ordered the animated musical series “Centaurworld.”

Dates

HBO‘s “Watchmen” will premiere on Sunday, Oct. 20. The series will follow an original story based on the world of the graphic novel of the same name. Nicole Kassell directs the pilot written by Damon Lindelof. Regina King, Jeremy Irons, Don Johnson and Tim Blake Nelson star.

Greenlights

Netflix has ordered the animated comedy series “Centaurworld,” about a war horse transported to a world filled with singing centaurs. The series will feature original songs and a mixed-animation style. Megan Nicole Dong will serve as showrunner and executive producer.

HBO Sports and NFL Films have announced the feature length documentary “Belichick & Saban: The Art of Coaching,” about the friendship between and coaching philosophies of football coaches Bill Belichick and Nick Saban.

Freeform has picked up the Thanksgiving-themed film “Turkey Drop” from Muse Entertainment.

Amazon has announced a series of 10 stand-up specials featuring Australian comedians to premiere exclusively on Prime Video in early 2020.

Set to be filmed this month at the Coopers Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, the specials will feature performances by Lano & Woodley, Zoë Coombs Marr, Judith Lucy, Tommy Little, Anne Edmonds, Tom Walker, Celia Pacquola, Dilruk Jayasinha, Alice Fraser and Tom Gleeson. See details of each below.

“Amazon’s comedy series and stand-up specials have excited our customers around the world, and we’re looking forward to welcoming this talented group of Australian comedians to the Prime Video family,” said James Farrell, Head of International Originals for Amazon Studios.

Here are details about the specials and the comics, per Amazon:

Joy

Tom Gleeson

Gold Logie winner. Chief celebrity interrogator. Host of the highest-rated Australian quiz show on TV. All-round hard man (especially in Cairns). There’s not much Tom Gleeson didn’t...

Amazon is going Down Under for the latest additions to its stand-up comedy slate.

The tech and retail giant has added 10 comedy specials from Australian performers to its growing library of stand-up performances. All 10 shows will film this month in Melbourne and premiere in early 2020 on Amazon's Prime Video streaming platform.

The specials are Joy, from Tom Gleeson; All Talk, from Celia Pacquola; Self-Diagnosed Genius, from Tommy Little; Judith Lucy vs. Men, from Lucy; Fly, from the duo of Lano & Woodley; What's Wrong With You?, from Anne Edmonds; Bossy Bottom, from Zöe Coombs Marr; Very Very, from Tom Walker; Live, from Dilruk ...

Sophia Zachariou.

Former Create Nsw director of screen investment, engagement and attraction Sophia Zachariou will join Bunya Productions as CEO, a newly-created role, in January.

“Sophia will bring a great energy to Bunya and help us grow. Her ethos very much aligns with what we do,” says Greer Simpkin, who is partnered in the production company with David Jowsey and Ivan Sen.

“She will help us develop projects and with overall strategy and relationships,” added Simpkin, who worked with Sophia for many years at the ABC when the latter was deputy head of entertainment.

Signalling Bunya’s plans to expand its slate of features, TV series and documentaries, Jowsey said: “It is a great coup for the Bunya Group to attract a talented and admired executive such as Sophia, who has deep experience and wide respect within the industry.”

At the ABC Zachariou also served as network executive producer on the Gruen series,...

Sophia Zachariou.

Sophia Zachariou has resigned as Create Nsw’s director, screen investment, engagement and attraction, and has already departed the agency.

The highly-regarded executive, who was previously head of development and production at Screen Nsw, quit late last week. She went to the office on Monday to inform the staff.

A Create Nsw spokesperson told If that Zachariou had decided to leave to “pursue other opportunities within the screen industry,” adding: “We thank her for her passion and commitment to Create Nsw and wish Sophia all the best for her future endeavours.”

Senior manager Sally Regan has been appointed as acting director, screen investment, engagement and attraction, and a recruitment process to appoint a new director will begin soon.

If understands she clashed with Elizabeth W. Scott, Create Nsw’s executive director, investment and engagement, who started in August, replacing Michael Brealey.

Some staffers who transferred across to Create...

One Night Stan..

Streaming service Stan has commissioned a new comedy series, One Night Stan. It will see a host of the country.s most popular stand-up comedians.—Wil Anderson, Judith Lucy, Tom Gleeson, Celia Pacquola, Tom Ballard and Sam Simmons.—.each star in their own feature-length comedy special.

Each show will be filmed live and exclusively for Stan over the summer at Melbourne.s Comedy Theatre.

.We are thrilled to be exploring new genres as part of our ever-growing slate of Stan Originals,. said Stan content chief officer Nick Forward.

.We are proud to be the first streaming service to commission stand-up comedy specials in Australia, and we.re excited to start by working with the best in the business..

.Aussies love their comedy and the stand-up circuit has long been a showcase of the best that the Australian comedy industry has to offer. One Night Stan will unite...

Seven local Victorian screen projects have received funding from the Victorian Coalition Government, through Film Victoria, to the amount of over $1.2 million. The funded projects include the documentary movies The Earth Wins and Electric Boogaloo; television documentaries Bodyline and Judith Lucy is All Woman; television movie Jack Irish: Dead Point; and television series Offspring(Season 5) and The Doctor Blake Mysteries (Season 2).

Louise Asher, Minister for Innovation, Services and Small Business said that .Since December 2010, the Coalition Government, through Film Victoria, has supported 91 film and television projects which are estimated to generate around $350 million in production expenditure in Victoria..

According to Ms. Asher, the screen projects funded through Film Victoria.s Production Investment Program will create approximately 950 jobs for Victorians. .To ensure our industry remains strong, we have allocated $8.5 million over four years as part of the 2013-14 Victorian Budget to deliver a suite of support to Victorian screen practitioners in the areas of television production,...

When Wilfred and.Lowdown co-creator Adam Zwar was in high school and university, he was fairly sure he must be deformed or charmless. Perhaps even both. At least in the eyes of women.

"All I was hearing were stories of success, while I was just going through failure after failure," he says. "It wasn't until later in life that I realised that all guys feel like that, and I think it's important that guys know they're not alone when they luck out."

Fast forward to 2012 and Zwar's production company has created Agony Uncles, a six-part series with the tagline 'When you have absolutely no-one else to turn to.'

The series, which is executive produced by Zwar alongisde Amanda Brotchie and Nicole Minchin, features 18 men including animator Adam Elliott, academic Waleed Ali and actor Josh Lawson, discussing everything from picking up and the first date to getting your heart broken and moving on again.

Production starts today in Melbourne on an ABC comedy written and starring comedian Josh Thomas.

The six-episode, 30-minute sitcom called Please Like Me is produced by Todd Abbott, producer of Rove, Judith Lucy’s Spiritual Journey and The Dream with Roy & H.G and directed by Matthew Saville, who directed episodes of The Slap, Cloudstreet and We Can Be Heroes.

As well as Thomas, the series stars Debra Lawrance of Home & Away, David Roberts of Offspring, Judi Farr of Unfolding Florence and Caitlin Stasey of Tomorrow, When the War Began.

The series is “about growing up quickly, and about realising that your parents are not heroes, but dopes with no idea what’s going on – just like you,” according to the ABC.

Debbie Lee, ABC head of comedy, said: “We’re so happy to be bringing Josh’s world to ABC TV in what promises to be such a funny and surprising series.

The Hunter has lead the Aacta Awards with 14 nominations including best film.

The film, by Daniel Nettheim, is also up for best direction, adapted screenplay, cinematography, sound, production design, costume, original music score, and visual effects. Meanwhile, Willem Dafoe, Frances O’Connor, Sam Neill and Morgana Davies are all up for acting awards.

The film has currently made just over $1m at the local box office.

It’s the first year for the re-launched AACTAs, formerly the AFI awards.

The technical awards will be given out at a luncheon on 15 January at the Sydney Opera House, with an evening ceremony for the more ‘public-friendly’ awards held at the Opera House on 31 January.

Running against The Hunter for best film is Red Dog, Mad Bastards, The Eye of the Storm, Snowtown and Oranges and Sunshine.

The Eye of the Storm, was second in the nominations race with 12, of which six are...

Myf Warhurst, star of outgoing rock trivia show Spicks n Specks is will host her own short series in 2012 on ABC1. Myf Warhurst’s Nice will follow Warhurst’s infactuation with all things retro and twee from her youth.

In a statement, the show is described as one “that embraces past cultural icons and takes a closer look at what surrounds us – the stuff you find in your own living room rather than in a gallery or museum. It’s a celebration of all the things that are just, well… ‘nice’.”

“I’m digging out the bedazzler, putting on my oversized koala wool knit jumper, and travelling the country to rediscover some of my favourite things, and meet some of my teenage heroes along the way,” says Myf. “Many hilarious (and occasionally dubious) things have shaped who I am, so it’s time to give them credit. And as far as life dreams go,...

Film Victoria finished its investment production for 2009/10 with $1.45m on eighth projects, including the TV adaptation of The Slap and a second series of Nsw-shot Dance Academy.

Other projects include ABC3 show Prank Patrol, the telemovie Sisters of War, and four documentaries.

The state agency’s board also approved a writer’s fellowship for Roger Monk for the script Romeo and Cheryl. It will allow him to work on the project over a significant period rather than stage-by-stage.

Further funding was approved for market support; Scott Alexander will attend XMediaLab Animation Market China 2010 with his project The Last Andy. It will be a loan, part of the agency’s professional development program.

The funded projects are:

The Slap

Matchbox Pictures. Prod: Helen Bowden and Michael McMahon’ Writers: Alice Bell, Emily Ballou, Brendan Cowell, Kris Mrska and Cate Shortland; Directors: Jessica Hobbs, Tony Ayres, Cate Shortland and Robert Connolly.

At a suburban barbecue,...

Opened

Thursday, July 24

Australia

SYDNEY -- Mick Molloy is Australia's most unlikely leading man. He started his career as a TV comic before finding major fame as a radio presenter and then met his Waterloo with his own disastrously short-lived (but always daring and innovative) television show.

Molloy bounced back from his show's dumping by writing and starring in "Crackerjack", a warm, genuinely charming comedy that became one of the biggest films here last year. For his follow-up, however, Molloy is a hired gun. The famously disheveled comic leaves the writing and directing duties to Tony Martin, his longtime collaborator and radio partner. The result is another rich, perceptive comedy, though with a much keener and darker edge.

Ben Kinnear (Molloy) and Mike Paddock (comedian Bob Franklin) are the proverbial cops on the edge. Part of Melbourne's Zero Tolerance Unit, they're as quick with a droll one-liner as they are with their guns. It's their hotheaded bravado that undoes them. After shooting up a shopping mall, the pair are bumped back to uniform duties. Nevertheless, they keep digging on their old cases, one of which leads them into the shady affairs of a corrupt casino boss.

Dogged by a tenacious journalist (Judith Lucy, Molloy's comic co-star and romantic foil in "Crackerjack"), Kinnear and Paddock soon realize that the corruption doesn't stop at the casino boss but snakes its way through their own police department all the way up to the State Premier (TV host and comedian Shaun Micallef).

By borrowing so many of its players from "Crackerjack" and featuring many familiar faces from TV sketch comedy and the stand-up circuit, "Bad Eggs" runs the danger of feeling a bit undercooked and overly familiar. But the sharpness and originality of Martin's script combined with the film's edgy tone cuts that possibility away right from the outset.

The look of the film (wonderfully shot by Graeme Wood) trades in dark shadows and muted blues, playing like some tricked-out, comic version of a '70s paranoid thriller. It lends "Bad Eggs" a truly cinematic quality that sets it apart from other low-key Australian comedies. The look here is just as vital as the laughs, and it gives the film a welcome gravitas. Which is not to say that the laughs aren't there. "Bad Eggs" bristles with one-liners and perfectly timed comic situations, only missing the mark when the humor is played a little too broadly.

Martin knows the cop genre inside out and plays eloquently within its conventions, having the smarts to make sure that the story works well enough as a thriller-mystery to keep the audience hooked throughout, while peppering them with jokes at the same time. The performances are all droll and consistently well-timed, but Molloy really rules the roost here, delivering another solid comic turn and helping the funny, charmingly abrasive "Bad Eggs" hit so many of its high notes.

BAD EGGS

Macquarie Film Corp. and Roadshow Films in association with the Movie Network present A Million Monkeys film

Credits:

Director: Tony Martin

Screenwriter: Tony Martin

Producers: Tony Martin, Stephen Luby, Greg Sitch

Executive producers: Jennie Hughes, Joel Pearlman

Director of photography: Graeme Wood

Production designers: Carrie Kennedy, Ben Morieson

Costume designer: Kittie Stuckey

Music: Dave Graney, Clare Moore

Editor: Peter Carrodus

Cast:

Ben Kinnear: Mick Molloy

Mike Paddock: Bob Franklin

Julie Bale: Judith Lucy

Northey: Alan Brough

Ted Pratt: Bill Hunter

Doug Gillespie: Marshall Napier

Premier Lionel Cray: Shaun Micallef

Pendlebury: Steven Vidler

Running time -- 98 minutes

No MPAA rating...