Outback Wrangler Matt Wright inks US deal to launch him as new global NatGeo star

OUTBACK Wrangler star Matt Wright will make his prime-time debut on US television next January in a new NatGeo deal celebrated by Joe Hockey.

WASHINGTON may be a natural playground for the world’s most fierce political animals, but Outback Wrangler star Matt Wright has just made it his happy hunting ground — and the launch pad for the Darwin-based adventurer’s assault on US television and beyond.

The new-breed crocodile and wildlife warrior was summoned, with manager and the show’s executive producer Nick Fordham, to the US headquarters of the National Geographic channel last week, where the network giant revealed its plans to push Wright into US prime-time, from next January.

The extraordinary potential this platform and exposure will provide the 36-year-old, as both a TV talent and tourism export, was not lost on Australia’s ambassador to the US, former treasurer Joe Hockey, who hosted an official reception at his new DC residence for Nat Geo WILD boss Geoff Daniels, his executive team and media.

Nick Fordham, Matt Wright and Australian ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey chat with NatGeo WILD general manager Geoff Daniels at Washington reception for Outback Wrangler.

With season two already a ratings hit in Australia, NZ, Asia, Europe, the UK, Middle East and Africa, Wright was then flown on to Cannes where the series was promoted heavily at industry showcase, MIPCOM.

At the annual marketplace for TV buyers around the world the blue-eyed bachelor was staggered to find himself was promoted by NatGeo and distributors Fox International in its top-tier titles, which this year included Morgan Freeman’s new documentary series, The Story Of God; and The Breakthrough, featuring directors such as Ron Howard and Brett Ratner.

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It was stunning reward for Wright and Fordham who have toiled hard to develop the series since 2007; with their latest plans for an animated version of the series aimed at kids already garnering global interest, and his first book in a multiple-publishing deal also due out later this year.

Darwin-based Wright was feted by the world’s top TV buyers and international media at MIPCOM in Cannes, France.

Wright admits he copped flack from fellow stock men when he attempted to make his first TV pilot back in 2005.

Besides his budding TV brand, Wright also owns and operates, Outback Float Planes, a high-end luxury tourism business in the NT; and if that’s not enough is currently building his own five-star luxury lodges up north (on schedule to open next year).

He credits Fordham with turning his amateur vision into a marketable brand, but tested the Sydney media heavyweight the hard way before inking their deal.

Outback Wrangler star Matt Wright took in the sights, including the Washington monument, after being summoned to National Geographic’s headquarters in the US capital.

“Sick of getting (mucked) around by other production companies” who had previously courted the handsome cowboy, Wright interviewed the city-slicker by taking him “egg-collecting in probably the largest [croc] swamp in the southern hemisphere.”

“There were hundreds and hundreds of crocodiles, cranky crocodiles, and we were waist-deep in water collecting their eggs. He was pretty wide-eyed when he got slung into a nest and this crocodile’s launched up and tried to grab him off the [helicopter].”

“It definitely concreted the idea of what type of television show we were making,” he laughed.

Of course, comparisons have inevitably been drawn to the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, but Wright is determined to carve his own path.

“The question was always ‘are you the next Steve Irwin,’ or ‘why are you trying to be him?’ And I think that was degrading to Steve,” the laconic Aussie told Insider, “because I’m a nobody. Yes, I do the same sort of work, but he’d built this great reputation for being such an avid conservationist; then you’ve got me, this little jackass jackaroo doing the same (thing) on a TV show. [The comparisons] were tough, but this is my work and I have to make my own mark doing what I do.”

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