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News.com.au
September 19, 2005
$20M Croc Movie
by Nigel Adlam
A ROGUE crocodile will be the star of the show in a new, multi-million dollar Hollywood movie to be filmed in the Northern Territory.
Rogue has a $20 million budget, which will make it one of the most expensive movies ever made in Australia.
The film is set in Kakadu National Park.
Shooting will begin in the Territory and Victoria in November.
Rogue is being made by Melbourne-based Greg McLean, who was also behind the thriller Wolf Creek.
But unlike Wolf Creek, the villain will not be a psychopathic killer, but a saltwater crocodile.
The film follows the misadventures of a group of tourists, including an American travel writer, a British couple and a girl from Ireland. The international cast is expected to be announced soon.
The film is backed by American producers Harvey and Bob Weinstein, the founders of Miramax Films.
The big-budget movie is a big step up for McLean, who made Wolf Creek with $1.38 million.
"I wrote it when I was 24," he said. "But it's a blessing in disguise that it didn't get made at that time, because now I go back to it with the experience of actually having made a film, and I can probably do it justice in a way that I couldn't at that time."
He said Rogue would probably be his last tourists-in-trouble movie.
"There is something just inherently dramatic as soon as you have people out of their element," he said. "If you're making a thriller or horror story Australia is such a fantastic place because there are such dangerous places and creatures."
McLean is eagerly waiting to see how Wolf Creek, a hit at the Sundance, Cannes and Melbourne film festivals, is received by general audiences after it opened on 350 screens in Britain last Friday.
Time Out magazine's Giles Edwards has hailed the film as a "horrific and beautifully shot classic-in-waiting".
The R18+ Wolf Creek will be released here on November 3 and debut on 2500 screens in the US two weeks later.
© News Limited 2005
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