Foxtel is planning a 6 part series based around the experiences of Australian and British journalists who covered Gallipoli including Charles Bean, Keith Murdoch and Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett.
Sam Worthington’s production company Full Clip will develop the series with Matchbox Pictures (The Slap, in the lead-up to the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli in 2015.
Penny Chapman from Matchbox told The Australian viewing the war from the journalists’ point of view allows the series to explore their characters.
“Each of these guys gives us a different facet of the war, which is not what you get if you do a story on the soldiers,” she said.
Worthington hasn’t yet decided if he will take an acting role in the as-yet unnamed series.
“We wanted to explore the whole campaign in quite a different way and the truth of what went down in Gallipoli, not just what the soldiers went through,” he said.
I have so much respect for the ANZACS (and all servicemen and women for that matter). I look forward to seeing Gallipoli from a journalists point of view.
The problem is. Gallipoli was just a massive tragedy and pointless waste of life which has been co-opted into some sort of patriotic moment for Australia.
If they go down the propoganda route. The thing will be pointless.
If they don’t and they want to accurately portray what went on. The sheer pointlessness of the loss. There’ll be a huge up roar from people who want to believe the fiction.
Not quite. There was ANZACS on Nine (with Paul Hogan) and there was 1915 on ABC. Both very good, but I preferred the latter.
Believe it or not, there was a good TV series about the 1915 ANZAC landings made by the ABC and broadcast in 1981.
You can get the series on DVD now. It stars Paul Hogan. Look for it.
Will Foxtel commission original programming like this for Fox8 rather than Showtime if they walk away from Showtime/PMP?