Julia Roberts and George Clooney will reunite in Ticket to Paradise. Photo / Getty Images
Julia Roberts and George Clooney will reunite in Ticket to Paradise. Photo / Getty Images
Australia's booming production sector has attracted the most A-listiest of A-list stars with confirmation George Clooney is heading Downunder to film rom-com Ticket to Paradise in Queensland.
Clooney will reunite with Ocean's co-star, fellow uber-celeb Julia Roberts.
Directed by Ol Parker (Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again), the movie is to feature Clooney and Roberts as a divorced couple who rush to Bali to stop their adult daughter from getting married.
It will film in the Whitsundays and southern Queensland in November.
Clooney and creative partner Grant Heslov are on board as producers, as well as Roberts, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Sarah Harvey, Deborah Balderstone, Lisa Gillan and Marisa Yeres Gill.
George Clooney will be filming a rom-com in Queensland. Photo / Getty Images
The production is expected to inject $47 million in the local economy, according to the federal government. Ticket to Paradise will benefit from a $6.4 million location incentive grant.
"We have worked in Australia before and found the local crews to be extremely professional," Bevan said. "We are looking forward to collaborating once again on this exciting project."
Roberts was said to already be heading to Australia to film the Watergate-era thriller miniseries Gaslit with Sean Penn, based on a Slate podcast.
Joel and Nash Edgerton were attached to Gaslit, but American trade publications recently reported the Australian brothers and co-star Armie Hammer left the project months earlier.
Nash Edgerton was to direct the series and has been replaced by Matt Ross – it's not clear if the production will be filmed without the Edgertons' involvement.
Ticket to Paradise is the latest in a long line of international productions that have set up in Australia because of its relative success in managing the coronavirus pandemic.
Some productions were already slated for Australia before the pandemic, including Baz Luhrmann's Elvis biopic with Tom Hanks, and Thor: Love and Thunder, which has attracted high-profile talent including Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista and Matt Damon.
Other productions moved to Australia as Covid-19 shut down filming around the world, including miniseries Nine Perfect Strangers, starring Nicole Kidman.
Then there are the celebrities who came to Australia for one thing and then decided to stay on, including Melissa McCarthy who is now shooting her Netflix series God's Favourite Idiot in regional NSW and Zac Efron who signed on to Australian film Gold and a second series of Down to Earth.
Celebrities who have temporarily called Australia home during this production boom also include Tilda Swinton, Idris Elba, Paul Mescal and Rossy de Palma.
50 Shades of Grey star Jamie Dornan is in hotel quarantine in the gear-up to filming series The Tourist alongside Hugo Weaving and Danielle Macdonald.
