Wake in Fright Getting the Television Remake Treatment
Steve Barton
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The ruthless and jarring 1971 flick Wake in Fright is getting a whole new look for modern audiences as News.com.au is reporting that Channel 10 has commissioned a new version of the Australian movie classic.
The remake will be a two-part presentation and comes just days after Foxtel announced it is making a new adaptation of Peter Weir’s Seventies classic Picnic at Hanging Rock.
Wake in Fright tells the story of John Grant, a young schoolteacher who is marooned in the small Outback mining town of Bundanyabba. Grant, on his way to Sydney after teaching in the Outback, is lured into a nightmarish spiral of drink, sex, gambling, and violence by the town’s residents.
Grant finds himself broke, on the run, and desperate to escape; but the town exerts a grip that strips away his civility.
“Kenneth Cook’s novel, now re-imagined for a new generation, deals with the biggest themes,” 10’s head of drama, Rick Maier, said.“Provocative, morally complex, and brilliantly realised, this classic story is guaranteed to stay with you long into the night and possibly for years to come.”
Novelist Peter Temple has joked that the Wake in Fright film, directed by Ted Kotcheff (First Blood), set Australian tourism back 20 years. It shows the dark side of Australian culture. It is full of boozed-up brutality, including a kangaroo hunt.
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