How Mick Molloy bluffed his way into making Aussie hit film Crackerjack

Mick Molloy revealed on air today that he took a fake-it-til-you-make-it approach to his beloved 2002 comedy film, Crackerjack.

Australian comedian and radio host Mick Molloy confessed on-air today that a serious case of writer’s block almost derailed one of his biggest career successes.

Molloy was speaking to guest Dan Sultan on Triple M’s Mick & MG in the Morning when he revealed that there had been difficulties in the making of his 2002 feature film debut, Crackerjack.

Molloy served as writer, producer and lead actor for the beloved Aussie comedy, in which he plays a layabout who finds new purpose in life through his local lawn bowls club.

Molloy explained that before the film went into production, he attended a meeting with a group of investors, having supposed to have already written the entire script to present to them.

Mick Molloy had writers block – so he had to improvise.

“I hadn’t written one word. So I said, ‘Well, I can’t write like this. I need to go away and write.’ So I went to the snow for two weeks.”

And what did he do on this fortnight-long writing sabbatical? Well, not write: “I just got hammered,” he confessed.

He returned from the trip and employed his best acting chops to bluff those same investors in their next meeting.

As he entered, he held in his hand a thick script labelled “Crackerjack” on the front page. Only he knew that the 89 pages inside were all blank.

Molloy with Judith Lucy and Bill Hunter in the film, a bona fide box office hit.

“I walked into the office, and I said, ‘Well, gentlemen, there it is. I could show it to you now, or’ – and I theatrically threw it in the bin – “You can come back and see me in two weeks time, because I’ve had this flash of inspiration and I think I’ll change the whole thing.”

Molloy revealed that once the meeting was over his lawyer fished the “script” out of the bin and soon discovered the pages were all blank.

“I said, ‘Don’t worry! It’ll all be ready in two weeks.’”

The delay tactic worked, and he was given another two weeks, this time managing to bash out the script the investors were waiting for.

His unusual writing method worked: Crackerjack was a resounding box office success, earning $8.6 million from a budget of $3.5 million to become the highest-grossing Australian film of 2002.

And that hastily-assembled screenplay, penned in the end by both Mick and his younger brother Richard, was nominated for an AFI award the following year. The siblings would later collaborate again on the 2006 boy band spoof BoyTown.