The fascination with Australia in the 1980s captivated American culture, from music like \u201cDown Under\u201d to the rise of actors like Mel Gibson, sparking an interest in the land down under. However, this infatuation seemed to fade away until an alternate timeline where DreamWorks Animation planned to revive this Aussie fascination with a film titled \u201cLarrkins.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLarrkins\u201d was set to chronicle the adventures of a little blue bilby in the Australian Outback, helmed by Chris Miller and acclaimed songwriter Tim Minchin. Boasting a stellar Australian voice cast including Hugh Jackman, Margot Robbie, Ben Mendelsohn, Jacki Weaver, and Rose Byrne, the project promised to rejuvenate the interest in Australia.<\/p>\n
The project started with Minchin joining as the songwriter in 2013, marking a rare original musical venture for DreamWorks Animation. However, the studio faced changes, struggling with box office disappointments like \u201cTurbo\u201d and \u201cMr. Peabody & Sherman.\u201d Despite this, \u201cLarrkins\u201d was slated for a February 2018 release.<\/p>\n
Following DreamWorks\u2019 acquisition by Comcast in 2016, the studio\u2019s priorities shifted towards franchise-driven content, neglecting original productions like \u201cLarrkins.\u201d New management typically favors their own projects, leading to the shelving of existing ones. This fate also befell \u201cLarrkins,\u201d declared a tax write-off a year before its planned release, preventing other studios from picking it up.<\/p>\n
Director Tim Minchin expressed profound disappointment over the project\u2019s demise. Despite being 75% complete, Universal\u2019s decision to write it off and discourage other companies from reviving it dashed any hopes of salvaging the film. However, Minchin\u2019s involvement in subsequent projects like \u201cBack to the Outback\u201d and the short film \u201cBilby\u201d allowed some aspects of \u201cLarrkins\u201d to reach the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cBilby,\u201d created by directors who previously worked on \u201cLarrkins,\u201d showcased certain assets and characters from the scrapped film, offering a glimpse into its universe. Despite the unfortunate demise of \u201cLarrkins,\u201d its remnants live on in the form of related projects, providing a bittersweet reminder of what could have been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The fascination with Australia in the 1980s captivated American culture, from music like \u201cDown Under\u201d to the rise of actors\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":21322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[6555,945,1010],"class_list":["post-21321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-bilby","tag-hugh-jackman","tag-margot-robbie"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}