After all the hype and anticipation, Aussie audiences will finally get the chance to judge Australia for themselves when the movie opens in cinemas on Wednesday.
But if director Baz Luhrmann is worried about how the movie will perform at the box office he’s not showing it.
Walking the red carpet at the US premiere of Australia in New York on Monday, Luhrmann said he was feeling positive after witnessing audience reactions to the romantic epic.
“The one thing I can tell you, whatever the box office numbers, whatever it is, audiences who see it are reacting with great intensity,” Luhrmann said.
“I have seen many a person in the good land of America crying over that film and that’s really heartening.”
Nicole Kidman glittered in a gold and black dress, accompanied by husband Keith Urban.
The 41-year-old star said as far as she’s concerned the film is already a success.
“Someone said to me `how will you decide if it’s been a success?’ and I said ‘It’s already been a success because I got to have a baby girl out of this movie’,” Kidman said.
While Kidman greeted fans, much of the focus was on co-star Hugh Jackman, who was declared the Sexiest Man Alive by America’s People magazine last week.
The married father of two seemed a little embarrassed by the attention.
“I’m so thrilled I’m actually in America and not in Australia right now because it’s hard to comprehend the amount of hazing and hell I’m getting from all my mates,” Jackman said.
Asked which was more beautiful, Australia or Hugh Jackman, Kidman laughed and replied: “I don’t know, he can’t compare.”
Singer Olivia Newton-John and media magnate Rupert Murdoch were other famous faces in the Aussie contingent to attend the first official American screening.
Kidman and Urban snuck out the back before the movie started and were booed by fans when they wouldn’t stop to sign autographs.
Australia, the most expensive film ever made in this country, follows the story of Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman), who inherits a remote cattle station called Faraway Downs in the mid-1930s, before World War II.
When cattle barons plot to take her land, she reluctantly joins forces with a rough-hewn drover (Jackman), to drive thousands of cattle across the country, only to face the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces.
Local and international reviews of the film have been mixed, but Jackman said he believed cinema-goers would enjoy it.
“It’s coming at a perfect time,” he said.
“The world is full of a lot of uncertainty and this movie, I think, offers a lot of hope.”
Next stop for the film’s stars is London and Paris for more red carpet premieres.
