Alex Proyas’ next film, Paradise Lost, will shoot at Fox Studio’s Sydney facilities later this year it was announced today. An adaption of the classic epic poem by John Milton, the film will star Bradley Cooper as the archangel Lucifer who falls from Heaven due to the sin of pride.
The film looks to be a rather big production with 20 weeks of pre-production, eight weeks of principal photography and motion capture, and 72 weeks of post-production and visual effects work scheduled.
Although born in Egypt to Greek parents, Proyas grew up in Australian and shot his last film Knowing in Melbourne in 2008.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the production will be spending something in the range of $93 million or AUS$88 million and create approximately 1,300 jobs. Two hundred of those jobs will be in the visual effects field. Given that the Australian dollar is currently at a record high against the far weaker US dollar, the incentives must be pretty generous in order for it to be affordable for the production to shoot there. Proyas has stated “we would need to qualify for the [40%] producer offset to make it at all viable.”
Part of the deal to bring the production to Sydney involves visual effects house Digital Domain establishing a studio that will continue on after its work on Paradise Lost is finished.
