Bradley Cooper heads Down Under

 Bound for Sydney: Bradley Cooper.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports

The "Sexiest Man Alive" is reportedly set to hit Australian shores in June.

Bradley Cooper will take up Sydney residency for three months, according to News Limited papers.

The 37-year-old star, who has starred in films such as The Hangover and Limitless, will move to the Harbour City to shoot Paradise Lost at Fox Studios.

Cooper is set to play Lucifer in what film website IMDB describes as an "action-heavy take on the epic poem centered on the war in heaven between archangels Michael and Lucifer".

Cooper was named 'The Sexiest Man Alive' by People Magazine last year.

Also listed among the cast are young Aussie actor Callan McAuliffe, Dominic Purcell, Rufus Sewell and Casey Affleck.

McAuliffe, 17, who will play Uriel in Paradise Lost, recently filmed with Baz Luhrmann on The Great Gatsby. He played the young Jay Gatsby.

IMDB states Paradise Lost as being in pre-production. The film will be directed by Alex Proyas.

AAP

Aussiewood: our guide to Australia’s film studios

A Few Best Men starring Olivia Newton-John was shot at Fox Studios in early 2011

Excerpt of a report by Georgina Pearson on the Encore Magazine website

Sydney

As Australia’s largest production facility, Sydney’s Fox Studios is spread over a 32-acre site with 155,000m2 of sound stages (eight) supported by 35,000m2 of offices and133,000m2 of workshops, construction space and art departments.

Nancy Romano, chief executive of Fox Studios told Encore that for Fox, it’s all about bringing in the big productions.

“We have three of the largest sound stages in the southern hemisphere and hence, we really lend ourselves to features that have large sets. For instance currently we are shooting The Great Gatsby and in the past have shot features such as The Matrix Trilogy, Mission Impossible II, Moulin Rouge, Australia and Wolverine.”

However, where the studio really shines is in its wider cinematic scope – Housing over 50 television and film related businesses, the studio is also neighbouring (AFTRS), the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and the Brent Street Dance School – which Romano sees as a point of difference – positioning Fox as a truly creative campus.

Romano also told Encore that its lighting department is one of a kind.

“We are the only studio that offers our industry a “one stop shop” – particularly since we recently launched “Fox Lighting” which, in itself, gives us a competitive advantage as we are now Australia’s largest studio and leading supplier of lighting equipment.”

Alongside the big budget films, Fox has been home to massive domestic TV productions such as Australian Idol and the X Factor, and is presently filming
Good News World, Celebrity Apprentice and Kitchen Whiz.

When touting for new productions Romano said it is important to use incentives that will benefit the local industry.

“We use everything at our disposal as we understand the benefits to NSW and the local industry – this includes both federal incentives and state incentives.”

With such a huge complex to fill, it would seem that Fox must sit empty for half the year in between big shoots. Romano explains that while recent dollar strength has found international productions slightly lacking, the complex is almost always buzzing.

“There are many factors which determine when and if productions come to Australia. Currently the lack of international productions is predominantly due to our rising dollar coupled with a Location Offset that is not competitive enough with other countries and certain US states, which makes life a real challenge to keep the studio busy all of the time. And Fox Studios Australia is never really completely empty. Whether it’s a feature, a television production, commercials, music videos, a fashion show or a launch, there is always something happening.”

On location and finally acting the part

Shining ... from left, Chris O'Dowd, Deborah Mailman, Shari Sebbens, Jessica Mauboy and Miranda Tapsell on the Sydney set of The Sapphires.

Article by Garry Maddox, the Sydney Morning Herald

After a slow time for the film industry, Sydney is enjoying star billing, writes Garry Maddox.

When Sydney was named a UNESCO City of Film last year, it was hard to know what to make of it. The only other city with the honour was - no, not Los Angeles, Paris, Rome, London or Mumbai - but 'oomble Bradford in northern England.

Almost a year later, Sydney seems to be living up to the title. Consider these developments:

In the biggest movie to shoot in the city in three years, Baz Luhrmann is filming The Great Gatsby in 3D with Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan. Instead of the tumbleweeds that have blown through Fox Studios since Australia and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, there are hundreds of crew, cast and extras, with word from the set suggesting the movie will look spectacular and show the creative potential of 3D.

The Sapphires, the film version of Tony Briggs's successful stage musical about the Aboriginal equivalent of The Supremes in the 1960s, has just finished the Sydney leg of its shoot. The director, Wayne Blair, is in Vietnam with his cast, led by Jessica Mauboy and Deborah Mailman, to shoot scenes set during the war. After the success of Bran Nue Dae, there will be high hopes for the film next year.

George Miller is down to the last few weeks of work on Happy Feet Two, having turned an old railway shed at CarriageWorks into a thriving animation studio with more than 600 crew. The sequel to the Oscar-winning penguin tale will be released in the US next month and here on Boxing Day.

While the falling dollar will need to hit US85¢ to regularly attract Hollywood production again, two other big movies are also in the early stages: Alex Proyas's Paradise Lost, based on Milton's epic poem and reportedly due to star Casey Affleck as the angel Gabriel and Bradley Cooper as Lucifer; and Walking With Dinosaurs 3D, adapted from the famous BBC documentary series.

These films come amid a promising time for Australian cinema.

When Red Dog was released, the feel-good drama about a dog that united the Pilbara mining community in the 1970s looked likely to take $5 million. It has cracked $19 million, which makes it the eighth-highest grossing Australian film in domestic box office history, and has sold strongly around the world.

On limited release, The Eye of the Storm has taken $1 million in three weeks. While the director Fred Schepisi's lavish adaptation of a Patrick White novel won't be a money spinner in cinemas, the blue-chip cast headed by Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis and Charlotte Rampling will give it a long life on DVD, video-on-demand and television.

After selling widely at the Toronto International Film Festival, The Hunter opened in cinemas this week, with Willem Dafoe playing a mercenary tracking down the last Tasmanian tiger. Next week comes The Cup, which tells the story of jockey Damien Oliver's stirring win in the 2002 Melbourne Cup shortly after his brother's death in a race fall.

Outside Australian film, the final Harry Potter movie took $52 million and showed that when a film is good, audiences seem prepared to pay for 3D.

The city is also back on the radar for film events, with the state government underpinning the Sydney Film Festival's viability for the next three years and the Australian Film Institute bringing the new Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards to the Opera House in January. The City of Sydney council is also financing a feasibility study for a new film centre for screenings, exhibitions and courses.

The only blip in all this encouraging activity is the state government's scrapping of the $5 million Production Investment Fund that lured film and television projects to NSW. ''The impact is more likely to be in television than in film but there will be an impact in film,'' the executive director of the Screen Producers Association, Geoff Brown, says.

''It doesn't impact at the top level with Happy Feet and Gatsby-type productions, but the smaller-budget Australian films will be looking elsewhere.''

Paradise Lost to film in Sydney with Bradley Cooper and Alex Proyas

Story by Nick Goundry

A big-budget version of Paradise Lost is coming to Fox Studios in Sydney and could rejuvenate Australia’s global appeal. Major international projects have been scarce in the country recently, with local producers largely blaming the Aussie dollar, so this is terrific news for the national industry.

Paradise Lost is expected to feed nearly AUD90 million into the local economy and create 1,300 jobs in New South Wales (NSW). There’s also the additional benefit of the involvement of rising Hollywood superstar Bradley Cooper and high-profile director Alex Proyas.

Andrew Stoner, acting NSW Premier and Minister for Trade and Investment, said: “To filmmakers and producers around the world, I say NSW is open for business once more – we are determined to make NSW number one again. Paradise Lost will see the next generation of post-Avatar motion capture work undertaken right here in Sydney.”

Proyas commented: “I’m delighted to have found such overwhelming support here in NSW for such a unique film offering unparalleled exposure for NSW cast and crew to the cutting-edge technology that will be used in the making of Paradise Lost.”

The film’s schedule includes 72 weeks of post-production, which will use Australia's generous 30% post incentive scheme. Details haven’t been released of exactly what benefits the film will receive, although part of the deal involves having effects company Digital Domain setting up a base in Sydney.

Terra Nova, which has Steven Spielberg onboard as a producer, committed to a season-long shoot in Queensland, but it’s the only other major international production that has been filmed in Australia recently.