Australia hopeful for new movie

It is predicted to be a blockbuster on the scale of "Titanic" but much more than box office returns will hang on the success of Baz Luhrmann's sweeping new outback epic "Australia."Â

The romantic drama, set in the country's inhospitable north on the brink of World War II, already boasts the cream of antipodean star power with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in the lead roles.

Director Luhrmann is the creative mastermind behind the Kidman and Ewan McGregor 2001 musical "Moulin Rouge!" and 1996's "Romeo + Juliet" starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. As Australia suffers along with the rest of the world through the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression, hopes are high that its namesake movie will revive flagging tourism down under.

In an unprecedented move, Tourism Australia has invested AUS$40 million ($27 million) in a new advertising campaign spinning off from the film it hopes will amuse and attract foreigners like "Crocodile Dundee" did in the 1980s. The government body's managing director Geoff Buckley said the movie, which has a budget in excess of $100 million, was the perfect platform to push the message that a holiday on the island continent can be a life-changing experience.

The film, to be released in November, centers on Kidman's English character Lady Sarah Ashley who inherits a vast outback cattle ranch and makes an epic journey across the country with a rugged drover, played by Jackman.

"The movie was telling a story about the transformation of one of the key characters, Nicole Kidman, and that transformation occurred because of her interaction with the land and with the people," Buckley said.

Selling Australia
"That storyline resonated with us in terms of the way we wanted to sell Australia." Buckley said the opportunity to piggyback off that message, which would be backed and marketed by the powerful 20th Century Fox studio, was too good an opportunity to pass up. Plus the movie could not have a better name. "Now here we've got a story that we think will resonate but also it's called Australia so for us that was a fantastic opportunity," he said.

The tie-in between movies and tourism has long been known Äž Buckley cites "Out of Africa," "Lord of the Rings" and "The Da Vinci Code" as films that prompted viewers to travel to where the action was set.

But he acknowledges the risk in basing an advertising campaign on a movie that could turn out to be a box office stinker. "We were always conscious of that as a possibility and as a risk," Buckley said. "The further it goes on, the less likely we believe that to be."

He said regardless of the success of the movie, the marketing exposure accompanying the film would be enormous. And the Tourism Australia campaign, television advertisements, which use elements of the Luhrmann movie, are designed to work independently from the film.

"They are stand-alone contemporary ads that if you've seen the movie, yes, you'll get the connection but if you haven't seen the movie you will still, we believe, get the message," he said. The strategy could be seen as a bold step, particularly as its follows Tourism Australia's controversial "Where the bloody hell are you?" campaign that was originally deemed too offensive to be aired in some countries. That campaign worked in some Western markets, but failed in Asia. And while more than 5 million international visitors come to these shores annually, bringing in some AUS$24 billion, numbers have been static for the past two years.

Meanwhile plunging stock markets, failed banks and the gloomy financial outlook may deter tourists from making the long-haul trip down under, which is both expensive and time-consuming.