Clooney, Roberts among stars shooting movies, shows in Australia
SYDNEY: George Clooney and Julia Roberts are the latest Hollywood stars to feature in a movie shot Down Under, thanks to Australian government funding for big budget films and the country's enticingly low exposure to the coronavirus pandemic.
The pair's film, Ticket To Paradise, received a Queensland state grant of A$6.4 million (S$6.6 million) to shoot in the Whitsunday Islands and elsewhere in the state this year.
Other stars to land in Australia in recent months for film and TV shoots include Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Natalie Portman, Zac Efron, Idris Elba, Liam Neeson, Melissa McCarthy and Tom Hanks.
Australia's aggressive response to the crisis, including lockdowns and border closures, has slowed community transmission to a trickle, making it popular in Hollywood for so-called "runaway productions".
Film-makers have also cited an A$400 million increase in Australian location grants since 2020 as a reason for choosing the country.
In Ticket To Paradise, the Whitsunday Islands will stand in for Bali, Indonesia, as Clooney and Roberts play a divorced couple attending their daughter's wedding.
She is also due to shoot Gaslit, a TV series about the Watergate scandal, in Sydney, with Sean Penn and Joel Edgerton, who would also direct, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Australian actress Nicole Kidman returned home with McCarthy to shoot Nine Perfect Strangers, a Hulu series based on a book by Australian author Liane Moriarty. - REUTERS
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