What to expect from I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me out of Here! this year

The new year is well and truly upon us. Which means it's time for barbecues, the beach and watching celebrities douse themselves with the entrails of small-to-medium-sized animals.

Offal aside, this year's season of I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! is set to look a little different. Due to COVID-19, Network Ten has jettisoned its annual trip to South Africa in favour of somewhere much closer to home. The far-north coast of New South Wales, to be precise.

I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! hosts Dr Chris Brown and Julia Morris. Credit: Network Ten

"I have to say the Australian wildlife came out in force," says the show's executive producer, Stephen Tate. "We had more snakes go through the camp in the first week of shooting than in the six years we've been in Africa."

Thankfully, the snakes weren't poisonous. In fact, they were a family of local tree snakes the cast and crew got to know quite well. The slithery friends exemplify the main thing viewers will notice about I'm a Celebrity this year: the show is finally set, as it would have you believe, in a place that actually resembles a jungle.

"It is genuinely a rainforest," Tate says. "The trees are just Jurassic. And we were actually able to do our first Welcome to Country on the series because we did feel very privileged to be working there."

(Not to be a stickler about these things, but it's worth noting that jungles and rainforests are slightly different. While both are tropical, jungles have a lot more vegetation closer to the ground. Regardless, a rainforest has much more in common with a jungle than the grassy South African valley where the show is typically set.)

The set, which is located near the NSW town of Murwillumbah, has been used by the British and German versions of I'm a Celebrity for the better part of a decade. Previous challenges have involved navigating semi-flooded tunnels and eating witchetty grubs and crocodile penises.

Tate says the cast went into the "jungle" this year with a very different mindset to previous seasons, which was refreshing for the crew as well as returning hosts Julia Morris and Dr Chris Brown.

"They've been through 2020 like all of us," he says. "They were really warm and funny and really embraced the experience. I think they enjoyed the escapism of it."

He adds that I'm a Celebrity will contain live voting just like previous seasons shot in South Africa. But because there isn't a time difference when the show goes to air, there will be less of it – at least in the first few episodes.

"Australia will still decide on the winner in a live vote," Tate says. "But we've come up with a new mechanic for the earlier trials and exits which is really fair and all of the cast agreed that what we came up with was excellent."

So, is Ten open to the possibility of ditching South Africa and keeping the show in Australia for the next few years?

"Absolutely," Tate says. "What 2020 has taught us is if you see a window to getting a TV show made, you have to take it. We've managed to get I'm A Celebrity made, we've managed to get Amazing Race made in Australia. We're currently working on getting Survivor made [locally].

"While we've struggled ... the Australian production community is really benefiting from the amount of production that is happening at home."

I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! returns to Network Ten at 7.30pm on Sunday, January 3.

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