There’s an awful lot riding on the fortunes of Moulin Rouge director Baz Lurhmann’s Australia, not least the country’s tourist industry.
Visitors to the land of Oz are falling in the credit crunch and in the wake of a disastrous ad campaign - “where the bloody hell are you?” - which managed to say everything you didn’t want to hear about Australia and compounded this by failing to translate into Chinese.
Another responsibility for Mr Lurhmann is the career of his favourite actress Nicole Kidman (star of Moulin Rouge) who has been flopping at the box office recently.
Teamed in this with Hugh Jackman, Nicole plays an English aristocrat caught up in World War ll when the Japanese bombed Darwin in the Northern Territories and looked as though they were about to launch a full-scale invasion.
In essence it’s an Aussie Gone With The wind, but with different accents.