It’s a Barbie world
Popular doll will be star of next movie being lined up for Coast
THE Gold Coast’s billion dollar film industry is set to get an injection of the plastic fantastic – Barbie.
The world’s most popular doll will be the subject of a bigbudget film potentially starring Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway which is in talks to be shot here on the Glitter Strip.
The film, to be directed by Australian Alethea Jones, is expected to see the popular doll ejected from her home of Barbieworld and land in the real world.
This would be created within the southern hemisphere’s largest sound stage at Village Roadshow’s Oxenford Studios.
Industry sources tell the Bulletin talks to host the film are well advanced but a deal is yet to be signed.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk met with executives from Sony, the studio producing the Barbie film, while in the US in June during a trade mission to the US.
The meeting was held on June 22 in Culver City, Los Angeles, home to major motion picture studios.
“I used meetings in Los Angeles in June to bid for more projects,” Ms Palaszczuk told the Bulletin. “We are still in negotiations, but we are confident of more positive news coming to a sound stage near you soon.”
If secured, Barbie would be shot on at the new $11 million facilities in Oxenford once the sound stage’s Commonwealth Games duties as a boxing, squash and table tennis venue end.
It comes as city leaders work to secure the city as the home of major superhero franchises on the back of the big-budget Thor: Ragnarok and Aquaman shoots over the past year.
With filming set to wrap on Aquaman later this year, there were fears the city’s movie industry would be left without a major production in town for the first time since 2014.
However, Mayor Tom Tate confirmed the city’s studios would not sit empty for long and that talks were well advanced for the city’s next hit.
Cr Tate said “yes” when asked if superhero films were likely to be among them.
“Our film and television industry has come of age and what comes with that is having the superstars here,” he said.
“After the Commonwealth Games, the super sound stage’s duties as a sporting venue will be over and we have got some big budget films coming in.”
The Bulletin understands Marvel is keen to continue its production relationship with the city.
If Ragnarok performs well, it is expected another standalone Thor film will be made.
A production insider said: “If there is another one, you can expected it will be filmed in Australia.”
Ms Palaszczuk appealed to the Federal Government to help secure the movie shoot with tax incentives for studios.
“What I don’t have is a Federal Government that is completely on board,” the Premier said. “We need the Federal Government to make a permanent increase in the location tax offset from 16.5 per cent to 30 per cent instead of making the studios wait for one-off deals from the Federal Treasurer.”