Kidman a Premier attraction on set
NICOLE KIDMAN narrowly avoided a close encounter of the political kind yesterday when she made a splash on the set of superhero film Aquaman on the Gold Coast.
Kidman spent the day filming her first scenes as Queen Atlanna, the waterbreathing mother of the King of Atlantis (Jason Momoa), at Village Roadshow Studios and on location at a sprawling set over the road at Coomera.
The actress is expected to wrap her role with a second and final day of filming today.
Director James Wan captured footage of Kidman indoors in Sound Stages 7 and 8 before production moved outdoors to the Atlantis-style city of ruins set at Coomera.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was also on the job on the Oxenford lot yesterday – as part of an inspection of 2018 Commonwealth Games venues.
Village Roadshow will hand its Oxenford studio complex over to Games organisers in January so they can fit it out for table tennis, boxing and squash.
The superhero film will move over the border to northern NSW for three days’ filming at the end of the month where a Curry Lighthouse set is rising from the rocks at Hastings Point. Crew will spend a total of eight weeks bumping in and out of Hastings Point as part of the location shoot even though cameras will only roll for “several full days”.
Large sections of the NSW set have been built and painted offsite in a warehouse at Murwillumbah before being transported to the headland.
Pedestrian access to the area will only be restricted on filming days to ensure the public can still access the site for whale watching season.
Producers have paid a $50,000 bond to use the site and budgeted $35,000 to restore it once filming wraps.
Screen NSW expects Aquaman to inject $3 million into the Tweed economy, with more than 250 filmmakers expected on set during the shoot.
Warner Bros. estimates at least 70 of the 700 full-time crew working on Aquaman are “Tweed Shire ratepayers”.
An extra 50 people will be hired on a part-time casual basis on filming days. The Hastings shoot will also require local extras to play beachgoers.
Warner Bros. will also train and employ four indigenous community members from the Tweed Shire to work in security for the shoot, with six young locals to be given jobs as personal assistants on filming days.
Tweed Shire Council has invited Screen NSW to participate in a workshop with local residents, community groups, council staff and councillors when Aquaman wraps to develop a protocol for managing future filming in the region.
Filming is scheduled wrap on September 29 to