During Covid-19 lockdowns, when many of us were baking sourdough, crocheting beanies and reminiscing about old flames, the prolific Australian film-maker Baz Luhrmann was ruminating about his biggest critical flop.
Labelled by naysayers as “aggressively sentimental”, “cringe” and “overlong”, Australia was a film the auteur had struggled to get over the line before its release in November 2008. As the deadline loomed, he’d been forced to capitulate to the top dogs at 20th Century Fox and give the 165-minute wartime epic a happier ending – one where Hugh Jackman’s ruggedly handsome Drover doesn’t die. Audiences at test screenings hadn’t appreciated Wolverine being killed off. (It’s unclear how they felt about Nicole Kidman’s immobile forehead, which also attracted unrelenting commentary.)
