SYDNEY WINS BATTLE TO SECURE MEL GIBSON’S WAR DRAMA

FILM industry insiders say Sydney has pipped the Gold Coast at the post to host production of Mel Gibson’s next Australian-made movie. The Gibson-directed WWII drama, in development under the working title Destroyer (III), will begin preproduction at Fox Studios in Sydney this year.

The film’s screenplay was written by Gibson’s partner, writer and actress Rosalind Ross, whose credits include Matador (2014). Partners since 2014, the couple are parents to son Lars Gerard Gibson, born in January last year. While US reports tip US actor Mark Wahlberg to star, his Daddy’s Home 2 co-star Gibson is yet to reveal his cast. The film, based on historian John Wukovits’ book Hell From the Heavens: The Epic Story of the USS Laffey and World War II’s Greatest Kamikaze Attack, documents how the USS Laffey fought off 22 kamikaze attacks during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945 and earned its nickname – The Ship That Would Not Die.