A Keanu Reeves comedy set on a long-haul flight to Australia leads Stan’s new line-up
By Karl Quinn
Stan has unveiled a slate of 14 new Australian originals – three drama series, six feature films and five documentaries – as it marks its 10th anniversary since launching in 2015.
The streamer, which is owned by Nine*, also revealed it had secured the rights to The Entertainment System is Down, the highly anticipated new feature from maverick Swedish auteur Ruben Östlund (Force Majeure, The Square, Triangle of Sadness).
Swedish director Ruben Östlund in the cockpit of the plane he purchased for his film The Entertainment System is Down, coming to Stan.Credit: Sina Ostlund
Östlund reportedly purchased a retired Boeing 747 for the black comedy, which is being shot in Hungary and features a planeload of passengers – including Keanu Reeves, Kirsten Dunst, Daniel Brühl and Australians Dan Wyllie and Wayne Blair – on a long-haul flight from Australia to England who are forced to endure the horror of boredom when the in-flight entertainment system breaks down.
Stan’s originals slate comes in addition to 12 other previously announced Australian titles, including the Nicolas Cage film The Surfer and second seasons of Ten Pound Poms and Scrublands, consolidating its position as the most prolific commissioner of Australian scripted content in the streaming and subscription market.
Leading the scripted commissions is Love Divided by Eleven, a drama from Robyn Butler and Wayne Hope (The Librarians, Upper Middle Bogan) about Lillian, played by Brooke Satchwell, who struggles to come to terms with the death of her fiancé. Her quest eventually leads her to track down the recipients of his donated organs, triggering a tangled chain of connections.
Alongside Satchwell, the six-part series stars Eleanor Matsuura (The Walking Dead), Ryan Johnson (Doctor Doctor), Ben Lawson (Firefly Lane), Annie Maynard (Upper Middle Bogan), Daniel Henshall (Snowtown), Kerry Armstrong (SeaChange), Megan Smart (Black Snow) and Khisraw Jones-Shukoor (The Newsreader).
Emily Browning stars in One More Shot, a time-travel rom-com gone wrong that co-stars a bottle of tequila.Credit: Ben King/Stan
In the dark comedy He Had It Coming, two young women become entangled in a murder mystery when their spontaneous decision to deface a statue of a university’s founding father is co-opted by a killer, and they are forced to urgently erase all ties to the site of the crime. The series stars Lydia West (It’s a Sin) and Natasha Liu Bordizzo (Ahsoka: Star Wars) as the young women, and Liv Hewson (Yellowjackets) as the detective on their case.
On the feature front, One More Shot is a time-travel romcom gone wrong, starring Emily Browning as a young woman who discovers the bottle of tequila she’s sipping from on the eve of Y2K has magical powers. The cast also includes Aisha Dee (The Bold Type), Sean Keenan (Puberty Blues), Anna McGahan (Darby and Joan) and Ashley Zukerman (Apple Cider Vinegar).
In Beast In Me, Russell Crowe stars as the tough-talking coach to Daniel MacPherson’s mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, dragged against his will and best intentions out of retirement and back into the ring to help his critically injured brother. Luke Hemsworth, nine-time world champion martial artist Bren Foster, and singer-songwriter Amy Shark, in her feature film debut, also star in the second feature from Tyler Atkins (Bosch & Rockit).
Daniel MacPherson in Beast In Me.Credit: Stan
Extending Stan’s foray into Christmas movie territory, Bump: A Christmas Film is set between episodes 509 and 510 of the popular series, and follows the Hernandez-Davis clan on a South American cruise. And yes, Claudia Karvan is in it.
Among the documentaries announced under Stan’s Revealed umbrella are the three-part Joh: Last King of Queensland, directed by Kriv Stenders, with Richard Roxburgh bringing the former premier of Queensland, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, back to life in re-enactment scenes.
Craig Bellamy: Inside the Storm goes deep inside the Melbourne Storm during the 2024 NRL season to capture one of Australia’s greatest coaches and leaders in action. And Death Cap promises “exclusive access” to one of the highest-profile criminal cases in recent memory, the so-called mushroom murders.
Stan Sport also revealed it has partnered with the Professional Fighters League (PFL), which it claims is the world’s fastest-growing MMA organisation, and will stream fights from the soon-to-be-launched Australian PFL. That league adds to existing franchises in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Stan is owned by Nine, the publisher of this masthead.
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