Hemsworth stars in first Qld-based Netflix Original

Byron Bay star Chris Hemsworth has been working on something a little closer to home. Here’s a sneak peek of the first Netflix Original movie to be made in Queensland.

First Thor, then brilliant visionary.

A few days after the world got it’s first look at Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Love and Thunder, Netflix has released first look images of the Australian acting star in Queensland-made sci-thriller Spiderhead, which will be released on the global streaming platform on June 17.

Based on a short story, Spiderhead sees the Thor star transform into Steve Abnesti, a visionary running a state-of-the-art penitentiary in which inmates wear a surgically attached device that administers dosages of mind-altering drugs in exchange for shortened sentences.

SPIDERHEAD: Chris Hemsworth as Abnesti, Miles Teller as Jeff and Mark Paguio as Verlaine in Spiderhead. Picture: Netflix © 2022

It also stars Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollett as inmates who form a connection as the experiments start to push limits.

Directed by Top Gun: Maverick’s Joseph Kosinski and written for the screen by Deadpool’s Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, Spiderhead is the first Netflix Original film to be made in Queensland.

It was originally slated to film internationally until Covid shut down productions and it was subsequently picked up by Queensland, filming in late 2020 at the Gold Coast Convention Centre and on location at Hinze Dam.

It came as studio spaces in Queensland were already filled with big-budget productions Elvis and Young Rock and Screen Queensland boss Kylie Munnich was searching for “anything with four walls” to house the influx of productions.

Spiderhead will be released on June 17. Picture: Netflix © 2022

At the time she said Byron Bay local Hemsworth was “super enthusiastic to come here” to film for Netflix.

Queensland accounted for a record $553 million share of the country’s total spend in the 2020-21 financial year