On Nov. 26, ‘Faraway Downs,’ a six-episode adaptation of Baz Luhrmann’s 2008 film ‘Australia,’ will go live on Hulu.
It’s 2008 all over again with Baz Luhrmann!
The trailer for Faraway Things, a “six-chapter reimagining” of the director’s epic 2008 movie Australia, was made available on Hulu on Thursday. The Lady Sarah Ashley character, played by Nicole Kidman, is introduced in the teaser when she travels to Australia some time after her husband’s passing to take over his property, known as Faraway Downs. Once there, she encounters Nullah (Brandon Walters), an indigenous boy who teaches her to appreciate nature, and a cattle rancher played by Hugh Jackman. When the police show up with plans to take the child into custody, Lady Ashley, Drover (Jackman), and Nullah are met with trouble. In the midst of Australia’s participation in the Pacific theater of World War II, Lady Ashley fires the police officers and decides to salvage the cattle ranch with the aid of Drover and Nullah.
According to the project’s official synopsis, Lady Ashley, an English aristocrat, “travels halfway across the world to confront her wayward husband and sell an unusual asset: a million-acre cattle ranch in the Australian Outback called ‘Faraway Downs.'” “Following the death of her husband, a ruthless Australian cattle baron, King Carney (Bryan Brown), plots to take her land and she reluctantly joins forces with a rough-hewn cattle drover (Hugh Jackman) to protect her ranch,” according to the synopsis. Nullah is a “bi-racial Indigenous Australian child caught up in the government’s draconian racial policy now referred to as the “Stolen Generations”,” as Lady Ashley learns when she first arrives at Faraway Downs. Never miss a story again; subscribe to PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to receive the best of the magazine’s content, including juicy celebrity news and gripping human interest tales.
According to the synopsis, the movie will cover “the unavoidable impact of World War II on Northern Australia” over a four-year period in addition to the romance between Kidman and Jackman’s characters. Faraway Downs debuted as Luhrmann’s 2008 film Australia, which was nominated for an Academy Award at the 81st Oscars for Best Costume Design. Back in June 2022, Luhrmann first revealed he would adapt the film into a six-episode miniseries with a brand-new conclusion. “I originally set out to take the notion of the sweeping, Gone With the Wind–style epic and turn it on its head — a way of using romance and epic drama to shine a light on the roles of First Nations people and the painful scar in Australian history of the ‘Stolen Generations,'” Luhrmann stated in a statement at the time. “While Australia the film has its own life, there was another telling of this story; one with different layers, nuances and even alternative plot twists that an episodic format has allowed us to explore.”
