Posters from Tomorrow

Recently as I waited in line at the cinema with some friends the conversation turned to Tomorrow When the War Began. All three of my friends are fans of the books, but I on the other hand never even read them. Oops. I'm not sure what I was doing in 1993 when the Tomorrow Series as it's known was first released, but I think by the time my friends started reading them I was really starting to get into this whole cinema thing so that's probably what happened there.

Never mind that though, back to the story. My friends started asking about the cast and the only one I could name was Lincoln Lewis because, well, he's Lincoln Lewis, I guess. I don't even watch Home & Away and yet it's kinda hard to not know who he is. One of my mates jumped on her iPhone and started googling images of the cast and they all kind of nodded and went "oh yeah, she looks right" and other appreciative comments.

I mention this because the other day I saw these character posters at the film's Facebook page. Being a film that is an adaptation of a much loved (MUCH loved) book, the casting is incredibly important. I think these posters are a good idea to help familiarise audiences with the actors and their characters. If they're like my friends they are aware of the movie, but haven't been following the development lavishly and so they can stand there in a cinema lobby looking at these and go "yeah, she looks like Ellie".


And one more here
There's been something quite exciting about following the film of Tomorrow When the War Began to tell you truth. Australia has had these big budget movies before, but they've never felt totally AUSTRALIAN (examples like Moulin Rouge! and Happy Feet for instance). This one, however, does. Based on the popular series of books about Australia, written by an Australian, the movie is directed by and stars Australians, was filmed in Australia and doesn't seem to be going out of its way to not be Australian. It's foolhardy for the studio to think they'll recoup all of their budget from Australia alone, even though I'm not sure how this film will play outside of our borders (especially without the stock international cast members usually used to bump up interest) so I give Omnilab, Ambiance and Paramount Pictures props for that.

Watching the trailer (below) and it's exciting to see a local film embrace the big blockbuster vibe, with great cinematic energy and a cast of attractive young actors. People, artistic bobbleheads mostly, constantly complain about the Australian film industry not making movies for (quite condescendingly) "regular audiences", but this one is certainly aiming to appear to more than just the regulars of the Cinema Nova. It sure does look impressive for $20million, doesn't it? We'll see whether the movie is any good when it's released in September.


You can follow the movie's production on Twitter @TWTWBmovie.