About midway through last year, when he was out promoting the release of his “Elvis” film, director Baz Luhrmann revealed he recently had been working on a project known as “Faraway Downs”.
The project is a recut of his $130 million-budgeted 165-minute 2008 period drama epic “Australia” – re-editing and expanding the film with deleted footage into a six-part television series for streaming service Hulu in the United States, and the Star section of the Disney+ service overseas.
At the time, it was hoped the series would arrive before the end of the year but that didn’t happen – and there’s been no real news about it since. That recently changed Cowboys and Indians reports that the project is set to premiere on those services in November.
Sources for Dark Horizons have subsequently re-affirmed the plan is for a November launch, though a specific date within the month hasn’t been revealed as yet.
The cattle drive drama stars Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Brandon Walters, David Wenham, Jack Thompson, David Gulpilil and Bryan Brown. The new series version is dubbed a ‘variation’ on the original.
The synopsis remains the same with the period drama ser around World War II and centering on an English aristocrat, Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman), who travels halfway across the world to confront her wayward husband and sell an unusual asset: a million-acre cattle ranch in the Australian Outback called Faraway Downs.
A ruthless Australian cattle baron named King Carney (Brown) plots to take her land, and she reluctantly joins forces with a rough-hewn cattle drover (Hugh Jackman) to protect her ranch. Soon a love affair between the two begins.