Mr Bilby can take you

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Bilbies from Charleville will make the big time on a Warner Brothers movie set and thrust their plight on to the silver screen.

Two of the endangered bandicoots will rub shoulders with Hollywood greats including Christopher Walken, when they go to work for mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer, maker of blockbusters like Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, Armageddon and Remember the Titans.

The marsupials will catch a specially chartered flight from Charleville to Sydney's Fox Studios to star in Down and Under, which casts Walken (Biloxi Blues, Pulp Fiction) as an American mobster on the run in the outback.

The word from Tinseltown is that the cast also includes Jerry O’Connell of Jerry Maguire and TV’s Sliders.

The little diggers will earn $3000 that will go towards building a bilby safe haven at Currawinya National Park, south of Quilpie.

Save the Bilby organiser and National Parks ranger Mr Frank Manthey will audition 35 bilbies in the captive breeding program at Charleville to select the two new stars.

He’ll fly them to Sydney next month as agent, manager and handler.

The bilbies come into the plot when Walken and his sidekick cross paths with a camel-riding park ranger.

“She’s out there to release bilbies into the desert in a bilby program.  So the bilbies become part of the movie,” Mr Manthey said.

The script called for rabbits but the moviemaker’s Sydney connections lobbied for the bilby instead because “it’s a rare Australian bloody thing”, he said.

They were going to release rabbits and you can imagine how stupid it would have been when we’re spending millions of dollars to get rid of the bastards.

“They’ve told the Yanks ‘you’re mad, go with bilbies’.”

The film coup comes as the Save the Bilby Fund prepares for the official opening of the bilby enclosure and is a major boost to the loveable creature’s efforts to dislodge the bunny rabbit as the official symbol of Easter.

letter to Frank Manthey (Save the Bilby Fund) from Peter Lawless (Location Manager)

Further to our telephone conversation, I confirm that Castle Rock Pictures, a division of Warner Bros, is currently producing a feature comedy film in Australia titled “Down and Under”.  Starring Christopher Walken and Anthony Adnerson, our story has two New York characters in the outback who enlist the help of a Wildlife Officer whose research work has her researching bilbies in the wild.  This was written as rabbits but we’ve convinced our US colleagues that rabbits are an athema to us!  Attached is a synopsis for your interest.

We would like to enlist the support of the Save the Bilby Fund to provide two native performers for a small but important part in our film.  The bilbies would not need to be out of their cages and would be in a scene in the studio at Fox Studios over two days. Being Tuesday 10th and Wednesday 11th of April.

We would expect to pay the cost to the Qld Parks and Wildlife Service of wages, airfares, freight and accomodation.  We would be happy to donate $3000 to the ‘Save the Bilby Fund’.

In addition our publicist would be able to provide photos of the bilbies on set to the PR Department of the QLD Parks and Wildlife for them to disseminate to their best advantage.  I appreciate our dates are near the Currawinya opening, but it could be a great lead in.

It would be appreciated if you could put out our request to the service.  I look forward to your earliest response.

After running afoul of a New York mobster, life-long friends CHARLIE and LOUIS are forced to deliever $100,000 in mob money to Australia.  While driving through the Outback, they come upon a kangaroo and decide to take some pictures with it - but when Louis puts his jacket on the kangaroo and it suddenly bounces off, they realize to their horror that the jacket contained the money.  Fortunately they're able to hook up with JESSIE, a beautiful Australian Wildlife expert who agrees to help them find the kangaroo.

Together they set out to track down their wild prey, and romance unexpectedly blossoms when Charlie finds himself falling for the ruggedly sexy Jessie.  What they don't know is that the mobsters have gotten wind of our heroes' misfortune and are clossing in on them from every side, further complicating their pursuit of the elusive kangaroo.
 
Note: "Down and Under" was the film's working title, it became "Kangaroo Jack" for its release.
 

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