News

As Australia gets ready to celebrate Sydney WorldPride and Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, the ABC, Screen Australia and Screen Queensland are proud to announce In Our Blood, a four-part musical drama series inspired by Australia’s radical response to AIDS in the early 1980’s, coming soon to ABC TV and ABC iview.

Starring an ensemble cast led by Tim Draxl (A Place to Call Home, Summer Love), Matt Day (Rake, Harrow), Jada Alberts (Mystery Road, The Stranger), Nicholas Brown (A Perfect Pairing, Christmas On The Farm), Anna McGahan (Spirited, House Husbands) and Oscar Leal (Bump, Black Snow), In Our Blood tells the story of people from politics, medicine and affected communities grappling separately with a terrifying new disease.

Tim Draxl, Matt Day, Jada Alberts, Nicholas Brown, Anna McGahan and Oscar Leal lead the ABC’s upcoming In Our Blood, a four-part musical drama series from Hoodlum Entertainment, inspired by Australia’s radical response to AIDS in the early 1980s.

Luke Hemsworth (“Westworld”), Milo Ventimiglia (“This Is Us”), Ricky Whittle (“American Gods”), Daniel MacPherson (“Poker Face,” “Foundation”) and Chika Ikogwe (“Heartbreak High”) join Russell Crowe and Liam Hemsworth in the cast of action thriller “Land of Bad.”

Stuart McDonald’s Gold Coast-shot wine rom-com A Perfect Pairing has proven palatable with international audiences, reaching the number one global ranking on Netflix.

Paramount+ has extended the lease for Hoodlum Entertainment’s Five Bedrooms, commissioning a fourth season of the housemate drama.

Filming will commence in October on the new episodes, which pick up just weeks after the season three finale.

There’s no doubt director Stuart McDonald’s “A Perfect Pairing” pairs perfectly with a nice bottle of wine on a lonely night at home. Providing a respite from our hectic reality, this romantic comedy centered on an assured woman who finds love and purpose in the land down under offers delightful entertainment while playing to our most wholesome sensibilities. Charming, cute and fairly satisfying, it follows the formula for Netflix branded content that’s typically reserved for their holiday films, going down smoothly and pleasing the palate.

A new Stan Original Christmas movie, produced in partnership with award-winning Brisbane-based production company Hoodlum Entertainment, will start production this week in Brisbane.

Supported by the Queensland Government via Screen Queensland’s Screen Finance Fund, Christmas on the Farm will star Australian-American actress Poppy Montgomery (Reef Break, Unforgettable, Without A Trace), who is also an Executive Producer of the film, as well as Hugh Sheridan (Five Bedrooms, Packed to the Rafters), Darren McMullen (House Husbands, Doctor Doctor) and Nicholas Brown (Amazing Grace, Wakefield). Rounding out the formidable cast that will bring this tangled Christmas tale to life are Jeanette Cronin (Doctor Doctor, Secret City), Asmara Feik (Upright, True History of the Kelly Gang) and Demi Harmon (Home and Away, Winners & Losers).

Dame Changer is pleased to announce our two filmmaker teams who have been chosen as the benefactors of its unique screen project accelerator program, after a competitive selection process for our Project to Market Accelerator: TV series Mummune and feature film Santa Whitebeard.

The film written by Elizabeth Hackett and Hilary Galanoy (Love, Guaranteed, Falling Inn Love) centers on a hard-driving LA wine-company exec who travels to an Australian sheep station to land a major client. There, she ends up working as a ranch hand and sparking with a rugged local.

Adam Demos and US star Victoria Justice (Afterlife of the Party) will lead a new Netflix rom-com to be filmed in Queensland, helmed by Stuart McDonald.

The script is penned by Elizabeth Hackett and Hilary Galanoy, with the film to be produced by Hoodlum Entertainment’s Deborah Glover and Tracey Vieira, alongside Robyn Snyder and Deborah Evans.

Filming has kicked-off in Brisbane for the new five-part comedy series for ABC iview, All My Friends Are Racist, supported by the ABC, Screen Australia and Screen Queensland and featuring Queensland’s own Leah Purcell in the role of actor and Co-Executive Producer.

Queensland has secured another major international production, with the second series of the Amazon Original young adult drama, The Wilds, starring Rachel Griffiths, Mia Healey and Shannon Berry, to film primarily on the Gold Coast from April.

International star Ioan Gruffudd reprises his role as renegade pathologist Dr Daniel Harrow, in ABCs popular crime series Harrow. Series three premieres next year, Sunday 7 February at 8.30pm on ABC and ABC iview.

Screen Australia has announced production funding for a new five-part comedy series for ABC iview, with support from Screen Queensland. All My Friends Are Racist follows two Zoomer best friends who make a pact to call their racist friends out, but instead of causing a revolution… they themselves get cancelled.

Australian director Rodd Rathjen has signed to direct the upcoming feature adaptation of Kurdish-Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani’s award-winning book No Friend But The Mountains: Writing From Manus Prison. The project, which was first announced this year during the Berlinale’s European Film Market, is now jointly led by Aurora Films, Hoodlum Entertainment, and Sweetshop & Green.

Hoodlum’s ‘Shakespeare Now’ and ‘No Friend But the Mountains’ to receive development funding from Screen Australia.

An ambitious and powerful, if necessarily convenient, multi-character drama in the mold of 2006 Oscar-winner “Crash,” “Australia Day” is a meditation on cultural diversity and the questioning of national identity. As such, it holds a mirror up to contemporary Australian society and offers those unfamiliar with its tensions a relatively factual dramatic experience. Festivals would do well to find a berth for the film, and distributors around the world would offer audiences the opportunity to learn about a darker facet of life in the Lucky Country.

Hoodlum Entertainment will resume filming the second season of Network 10’s Five Bedrooms in Melbourne on Friday, three months after production was forced to shut down due to COVID-19.

The British public broadcaster becomes the latest international network to pick up the series, which will launch on NBCU’s streaming service Peacock in the U.S. in April. The show is set to launch on BBC’s main channel in a daytime slot soon.

Behrouz Boochani’s award-winning debut book, No Friend But The Mountains, will be made into a feature film with production to begin in Australia in mid-2021. The film adaption of No Friend But The Mountains will be a collaborative project between three Australian production companies: Aurora Films, Sweetshop & Green and Hoodlum Entertainment, and will be filmed primarily in Australia.

Ioan Gruffudd is to move into directing for the first time on crime drama Harrow after the ABC Studios-produced series was picked up for a third season. The Welsh actor, who previously starred in U.S. drama Forever, will direct an episode of the third season for Australian public broadcaster ABC.

The Australian obsession with housing prices and affordability is the inspiration behind Five Bedrooms, Hoodlum Entertainment’s drama which started shooting in Melbourne today. Commissioned by Network 10, the series features an ensemble cast led by Kat Stewart, Stephen Peacocke, Doris Younane, Katie Robertson, Roy Joseph, Kate Jenkinson and Hugh Sheridan.

Timing can be everything. Producers Tracey Robertson and Nathan Mayfield, founders of the Brisbane-based Hoodlum Entertainment, had been nursing the possibility of Tidelands for years. And they were thinking big.

The Logie Awards, AKA Australian television’s night of nights, are less than a month away, and the official list of nominees was announced at an event on the Gold Coast today, including a nomination for Harrow for Most Outstanding Drama Series.

ABC’s sleeper hit Harrow has been green lit for another season, and it will be bringing its handsome international star with it. The series, which is a Friday night ratings winner for the ABC regularly drawing in more than 500,000 viewers in the challenging timeslot, has been picked up for a second season on the back of the strong numbers.

Margot Robbie and her LuckyChap Entertainment (I, Tonya) is partnering with the Australian Broadcasting Company, Aussie production company Hoodlum (Secrets & Lies) and ABC Studios International on a new ten-part series, retelling the work of Shakespeare from female perspectives. The project, currently in development, will be produced in Australia, with filming expected to begin in 2018.

Her production company Lucky Chap, which produced the award-winning film I, Tonya, has partnered with local production company Hoodlum Entertainment, ABC Australia and US-based ABC Studios International to create a new drama that will begin shooting later this year.

Charlotte Best has landed the biggest role of her career – the lead in the Netflix Original series Tidelands – after starting out as a teenager playing Annie Campbell in Home and Away followed by Puberty Blues and Craig Boreham’s Teenage Kicks. The cast includes Aaron Jakubenko (The Shannara Chronicles, Spartacus: War of the Damned), Spanish-born, Byron Bay-based Elsa Pataky (The Fast & Furious franchise, 12 Strong), Peter O’Brien and Mattias Inwood.

The Byron Bay Film Festival will once again present an Australian contingent of 360° VR works at this year’s Cannes’ Next, the innovation hub of the festival’s market.

Netflix is going Down Under. The streaming giant has ordered its first Australian original series Tidelands, a supernatural crime drama from the producers of Secrets & Lies. The 10-episode project, which will debut exclusively on Netflix, will start shooting in Queensland in 2018.

ABC Studios International has its first series. A year and a half after promoting Keli Lee to managing director of international content and talent, the banner has landed a straight-to-series order for Australian drama Harrow.

There is always a risk with a television procedural: the rule book is thick and heavily derivative thanks to branches off a family tree which have grown wild like weeds, from Perry Mason to the present day, with stops along the way including CSI, Silent Witness, NCIS and many more

“It was really great to see the team recognised at this year’s SPA Awards. This is an important project that took some serious planning to pull off,” explained Benjamin Richards, Cutting Edge’s Director of Creative Development & Innovation.

Disney’s ABC Studios International and Australian production company Hoodlum Entertainment have signed a worldwide first look deal. The agreement expands an existing partnership and steps up their international development and production efforts.