Sam Worthington, Jason Clarke Lead Warwick Thornton‘s First Warrior

Main Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton has signed on to direct First Warrior, an epic function about Australian Aboriginal resistance fighter Pemulwuy. Aussie stars Sam Worthington (Avatar, Hacksaw Ridge) and Jason Clarke (Oppenheimer, Zero Darkish Thirty) have boarded the undertaking in lead elements, whereas a casting search is claimed to be underway for the lead position of Pemulwuy.

A Bidjigal man of the Sydney tribes, Pemulwuy led a 12-year resistance in opposition to British settlers transferring into his folks’s conventional lands as Australia was colonized within the late 1700s. 

Considered one of Australia’s most admired administrators, Thornton broke by in 2009 when his directorial debut, Samson & Delilah received the Cannes Movie Pageant’s Digicam d’Or prize. His 2017 movie Candy Nation took house Venice’s Particular Jury Prize and his most up-to-date work, The New Boy, starring Cate Blanchett, premiered at Cannes final yr.

First Warrior is supported by the Bidjigal, Dharawal and Dharug Elders and is led by an all-Indigenous core artistic staff together with Thornton, author Jon Bell (The Moogai, Cleverman) and writer-producer Andrew Dillon (Le Champion, Outliers). Dillion is a direct descendant of each the Dharug and Gomeroi folks and can produce First Warrior below his That’s-A-Wrap Productions banner, an Indigenous First Nations-owned and operated manufacturing firm.

The movie is produced and government produced by Shana Levine (The Moveable Door, Charlie & Boots), with Phillip Noyce (Rabbit-Proof Fence, Salt) additionally an government producer. BAFTA-nominated screenwriter Stuart Beattie (Collateral, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) is a co-writer.

“I’m so honored to be part of this superb movie. It’s an essential story with an superior script and legendary actors,” mentioned Thornton in a press release.
 
Dillon added: “It has been a lifelong objective of mine to have our Indigenous warriors celebrated on the silver display. I can’t look forward to audiences to not solely expertise Warwick’s imaginative and prescient for this story, however to go away the cinema with a newfound appreciation of Australia’s shared historical past.”