Baz Luhrmann Wants To Make ‘Elvis’ Into a Series After ‘Faraway Downs’: “I’ve Shot Different Layers”

After 15 years, Baz Luhrmann has returned to his 2008 drama Australia to rejigger the story into the one he’s always wanted to tell by adding additional footage and a new ending. Along the way, he discovered another movie of his that lends itself to the same form of reimagining: Elvis.

The new Hulu series Faraway Downs is a six-part story that shifts the perspective of Australia. Upon its release, some viewers complained that the two are too similar, but that criticism doesn’t bother Luhrmann. “Well, I don’t mind that. They’re confused…” he told Decider over a Zoom call. 

Starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, the story is set against the backdrop of World War II and follows English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman) as she sells her million-acre ranch in Australia.

Amidst the war-torn background and a deadly battle over land ownership, Lady Sarah finds companionship in a nameless cattle drover (Jackman) and a biracial Indigenous Australian child Nullah (Brandon Walter), the latter of whom she tries to protect against the country’s discriminatory policies.

Faraway Downs, however, transforms Australia into an “old-fashioned melodrama” and a grand epic with Luhrmann’s new ending and supplemental scenes, which brings more focus to Lady Sarah and “her transformation in the self-realization of her being a woman in a very male-dominated environment.”

Without giving too much away, Luhrmann explained, “Sarah’s alone at the end… There are the plot points that are completely different. It would be disingenuous to go, ‘Oh, it’s Australia, but with a few tweaks,’ because it fundamentally has a different conclusion. She is, in the end… like Drover said, ‘You can’t really can’t own land, or a child, or a relationship, or control anything. All you’ve got is your story.’ That is amplified when she’s left alone with this melodramatic ending. She’s left with herself. She can’t be a white savior – that’s what Drover says.”

Lucky for Luhrmann, he captured enough footage in the late-aughts and “didn’t have to think about shooting at all” when it came to pulling together Faraway Downs, which first crossed his mind during the COVID-19 pandemic when “Elvis went away and streaming came along.”

“During the making of [Australia], I really did believe that I’d get a chance to do the epic version. I just didn’t know how or when… The material was there. I shot it. I just had to cut it,” Luhrmann explained. Faraway Downs does include newly recorded dialogue replacements from Jackman, Kidman, and Walters, which can be heard throughout the series, along with new, contemporary music from first-nation performers, including Budjerah, who recorded the track for the title sequence.

Now that Faraway Downs has been released, Luhrmann has had ample time to consider other movies of his that he’d like to revisit, and has expressed in previous interviews that he’s interested in expanding Elvis. Given that the purpose of Faraway Downs was to recontextualize Australia, when asked how he would change the way he portrayed the “Hound Dog” singer in his eight-time Oscar-nominated movie for a potential TV series, Luhrmann said, “I might be more radical.”

“That’s a good question because this is an experiment. Now, I wouldn’t do it with Moulin Rouge, but with Elvis, I’m thinking I will do a long-play cut,” he said before pausing to think. “I don’t know when, but I might be more radical in the way I tell the story. I have materials and layers. Architecturally, cinema’s really horizontal, but with episodic storytelling, you go horizontal and vertical. You can enrich beats. I’m pretty sure that whenever I get around to it, I will be quite daring in the way I tell the story. I’ll enrich the story. I’ll investigate. I’ve shot different layers and different elements.”

Luhrmann continued, “It’s an experiment, so why not? I don’t want to do the version I did specifically for the cinema, and then, just add some flavor, you know? That wouldn’t keep it interesting for me… Any great story can be told many different ways at many different times, with many different perspectives and many different voices. That’s why they’re universal.”

All said, what makes Luhrmann stand out from the rest of the Hollywood machine, which has been churning out remakes and IP-driven titles for decades, and what makes his experiment feel refreshing, is that the outcome of these reimaginings isn’t for award recognition or to change the perspective of critics.

In fact, Luhrmann doesn’t pay any attention to awards buzz and hasn’t even considered whether Faraway Downs is eligible for the Emmys. “I mean, Australia got nominated for an Oscar for Costume Design, or something. But the truth is that I never ever make anything for awards. I live outside the box, and I don’t do it to be annoying, even though I’m sure I am annoying, but it’s just the way I see things, and I can’t escape it.”

Faraway Downs is currently streaming on Hulu.