Baz Luhrmann’s 2008 film Australia has gotten a limited series makeover as the movie was re-edited with a massive amount of previously unreleased footage to be a new six-part event on Hulu retitled Faraway Downs. The series is now available, and according to the review by our own Alex Maidy, “Faraway Downs proves that the director’s signature style may be right at home on the small screen in the extended canvas of limited and ongoing series. I enjoyed this version of the tale far more than I did when I saw the original, and I look forward to seeing what this revision will prompt other filmmakers to do with their excised footage and passion projects.”
One possible revision that could be in the works with Baz Luhrmann is an extended cut of his musical biopic, Elvis, featuring a breakthrough performance by the up-and-coming star Austin Butler. Baz Luhrmann recently caught up with Variety, where the Aussie filmmaker spoke about the changes made to Australia. When he was inquired about whether he felt he would revisit more of his past works in the manner of Faraway Downs, Luhrmann answered, “This might have implications on my other works. Not necessarily the really tight ones, but when I was working on Elvis, I know there is a different version of Elvis that is episodic that might have a life.” He added, “But they shouldn’t destroy each other’s existence. They should live with a relation to each other, like two children.”
This idea has been kicked around previously by Luhrmann. Around this time last year, the outside-the-box director stated he filmed full-on Elvis concerts with Austin Butler for the movie, and there is a four-hour cut of the biopic in existence. “It’s a directors’ assembly. It’s not a cut. There’s a whole lot of material that adds up to four hours…Austin did his concerts full out. He did all the numbers. Austin just did it and it was an out of body experience to watch him do those full concerts, so one day I will cut those full concerts together.” He would add, “I thought it would be great for you guys to have the experience only we had, which is to watch Austin do the entire concert. So I can’t say exactly when because I have got to get through this, but I can say one thing: there will be a day when we do that concert version.”