Cost of Baz Luhrmann’s The Get Down a new Netflix record

IT’S being called ‘colourful and kinetic’ but you can add ‘ridiculously expensive’ to the descriptions of Baz Luhrmann’s new series The Get Down which is breaking all of the wrong records.

IT’S being called ‘colourful and kinetic’ but you can add ‘ridiculously expensive’ to the descriptions of Baz Luhrmann’s new series The Get Down which is breaking all of the wrong records.

Shot over 12 episodes and premiering this Friday, the Netflix series took a whopping two-and-a-half years to meet completion following a series of stops, starts, rewrites and reshoots and even earned the nickname ‘The Shut Down’ among industry insiders, such was the worry the series would ultimately be canned.

Netflix’s new series, The Get Down, directed by Baz Luhrmann suffered delays and massive cost overruns. Picture: Supplied/Netflix.

Baz Luhrmann's new Netflix series The Get Down premieres on August 12

Instead it now holds the record for the most-expensive series Netflix has ever produced after the budget tipped $120 million.

It’s a memory weirdly familiar to anyone who worked on (or close to) The Great Gatsby — Luhrmann’s lurid retelling of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic which also went significantly over budget during its infamous 2012 shoot.

(Though Sydney’s bad weather was often the reason cited for this.)

Just like Gatsby, Luhrmann went through a series of writers on The Get Down and, according to Variety, two showrunners and every inch of the patience among executives at Sony Pictures Television.

The series now holds the record for the most-expensive series Netflix has ever produced at $120 million.

Luhrmann has a history of cost overruns and not meeting deadlines.

Coincidentally Sony also produced Gatsby which ballooned in budget, from US$80 million to around US$120 million.

Then, of course, there’s Australia — the now-infamous $120 million disaster.

So, is Luhrmann’s reputation as Hollywood’s most-expensive director now set in stone?

Whatever the case, all of that vast expense has resulted in some fairly good reviews for The Get Down which chronicles US funk music during the 1970s in the Bronx.

(The Get Down refers to the best part of a song — or the ‘sweet’ spot of a record that would light up a dancefloor.)

The Get Down refers to the best part of a song — or the ‘sweet’ spot of a record that would light up a dancefloor.

Indewire calls it Luhrmann’s best work since Moulin Rouge while The Hollywood Reporter claims the series thrives when Luhrmann’s influence becomes less evident.

“(Luhrmann’s) excesses work best in specific environments (Moulin Rouge) and less effectively in others (Australia, The Great Gatsby),” they write.

Nelson George and Grandmaster Flash, executive producers for the Netflix original series "The Get Down" and creator Baz Luhrmann. LISTEN TO THE SYDNEY CONFIDENTIAL PODCAST