Our collective hearts were broken when it came out that the trailers for an upcoming DUNDEE movie with Danny McBride, Chris Hemsworth, Margot Robbie and more was just an ad for Australian tourism. It was a brilliant idea, but many couldn’t help but think this would make a fantastic real movie. Well, now the Super Bowl is here and you can watch the completed commercial, featuring McBride and Hemsworth coming clean about their shady plans. Great, now that that’s done how about you get to work on a real movie.
Tourism Australia spent a ton of dough on this series of ads, spending around $27 million dollars. You can read a bit about the goal of the campaign, as well as a bit of a synopsis of the fake movie:
The teasers led viewers to believe that Mick “Crocodile” Dundee was lost in the outback, and only the American son no one knew he had would be able to find him. Cue Brian Dundee returning to the Australian outback to find his father. The teaser films and promotional campaign encouraged fans to tune in to see the “official movie trailer” during the Big Game, where the Tourism Australia campaign was ultimately revealed.
Part of its global “There’s Nothing Like Australia” masterbrand campaign, “Dundee: The Son of a Legend Returns Home” represents the biggest campaign Tourism Australia has run in the US since Paul Hogan’s “Come and Say G’Day” campaign in 1984—as well as the largest investment ever made by Australia into a single overseas tourism market. The new US$27 million campaign is aimed at supercharging interest, bookings and spending by American travelers, with the goal of making Australia the most desired destination to visit among US travelers by 2020.
Well, the idea was fun while it lastest, and though I dream of the movie we could've gotten, this was a brilliant concept for a tourism ad. Sure they could've just done aerial footage of the scenic coastline and wonderful landscapes, but that doesn't require as much investment or inspire as much hilarity as this did. Now I want to go to Australia simply because I feel like I have to at this point. They earned my money ten times over.