“What’s unique about this project for filmmakers is that they’re getting to practice parts of their craft that on other series shot in Australia you just don’t,” said Jo Porter, the show’s executive producer and manager of Curio Pictures.
“Having sets, exterior and interior, like this, the depth of the costume, the livestock, the size of the extra scenes [it’s really unusual]. Disney has given us the ability to really tell a story at scale, and never to be taken for granted.”
The Artful Dodger, however, is not the most expensive series shot in Australia. That honour goes to the $300 million series Nautlius, which Disney dumped in 2023 as part of aggressive cost-cutting. The series then resurfaced on Stan* late last year.
The new trio of leading men join returning lead Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who plays Dr Jack Dawkins, who has reinvented himself as surgeon in Port Victory in Australia. His nemesis, Fagin, played by David Thewlis, is now his sidekick of sorts, while Australian actor Maia Mitchell plays Lady Belle Fox, an aspiring surgeon and Dawkins’ love interest.
Thomas Brody-Sangster (left) as Dr Jack Dawkins and David Thewlis as Fagin in The Artful Dodger.
The Artful Dodger is the fourth high-profile shoot to take place at Callan Park, with Paramount+ series Playing Gracie Darling and Amazon Prime Video’s adaption of Richard Flanagan’s 2014 Booker Prize winner The Narrow Road to the Deep North also calling the site home.
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Before that, the park was home to The Deb, Rebel Wilson’s directorial feature debut, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, but does not yet have a release date.
Season one of The Artful Dodger is Disney’s top local original, and has been nominated for seven AACTA awards, including best drama series, best casting in television and best production design in television.
According to Screen Australia’s annual Drama Report, released at the end of last year, Hollywood’s 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes had a delayed impact locally, pushing screen production in Australia to its lowest level since the beginning of COVID.
The sector recorded expenditure of $1.697 billion in 2023-24, which was down 29 per cent on the previous year, when $2.385 billion was spent making film and television drama and comedy in this country, including both local content and offshore (primarily Hollywood) productions.
*Both Stan and this masthead are owned by Nine.
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