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At the recent launch party of Underbelly: Razor, Alice Terlikowski of Encore’s sister publication, Mumbrella spoke with Des Monaghan, executive director of Screentime, Jo Horsburgh, head of drama at Nine and Danielle Cormack, who plays one of two female protagonists, Kate Leigh.

Both Monaghan and Horsburgh praised the quality of Australian drama of recent years, improving beyond our imported counterparts.

Monaghan: “The quality has improved out of sight, we all get better the more chance we have to do it and thanks to the producer offset we’re getting to do more. It’s such a competitive environment now, the networks know that only way they’ll break through is by domestic product. They aren’t going to do it through imported shows, it has to be domestic shows. At the moment we’ve got hugely successful non-fiction shows, so called reality shows but they never are, and top drama series,...

Beaconsfield the telemovie, based on the 2006 Tasmanian mining disaster moves into production in July, announced The Nine Network.

Starring Shane Jacobson (Kenny, Top Gear Australia) and Lachy Hulme (Matrix Trilogy, Let’s Get Skase) the three hour film tells the story from the perspective of rescuers Matthew Gill and Pat Ball.

Other cast include Sasha Horler (Offspring, Love My Way and Hawke) and Michala Banas (Winners and Losers and McLeod’s Daughters).

Beaconsfield is produced by Southern Star John Edwards (Paper Giants, Love My Way) and Jane Liscombe (Last Ride, Cracker Bag). It is written by Judi McCrossin (The Secret Life of Us, The Surgeon) and will be directed by Glendyn Ivin (Last Ride, Offspring).

In a statement Jo Horsburgh, Nine’s Head of Drama, said, “Beaconsfield is a drama that touched the hearts of all Australians.

“We were all glued to our TVs throughout the 14 days for news on...

According to the Nine’s head of drama Jo Horsburgh, the network’s slate is one of its busiest ever, even in the face of increasing production costs.

“The question from both [CEO] David Gyngell and [director of programming] Michael Healy has been ‘Can we make more and more Australian drama?’ Certainly the sense within Nine is the more, the merrier, but the reality is how long it takes to get it on to the screen, to find the projects, to get the finance together,” Horsburgh told Encore.

“We’d love to be like Hollywood but we’re not quite there yet. Ideally, we’d like to make more because Australian audiences are interested in Australian drama, and that’s been demonstrated,” she said. “Generally speaking, there have been increases in salaries and equipment, and rightly so, in the cost of scripts, which was long overdue.”

Nine launches its new police drama Cops L.

As production begins on the first Underbelly telemovie, The New York Magazine reports that American pay TV network Starz has acquired the Us rights to the crime series and is developing a remake, which is “a top priority” for them.

The blog Vulture says Starz CEO Chris Albrecht is “clearly hoping Underbelly’s phenomenal success in Australia can be replicated” in the Us, although the remake won’t use the Australian scripts and is instead researching American crime families that could have effective story arcs built around.

The report says that “assuming the right real-life inspiration can be found quickly, a script could be ready well before the end of the year. If Albrecht likes what he sees on the page, insiders say he’s prepared to eschew the usual pilot stage for Underbelly, and go straight to series.”

In Australia, the Nine Network commenced production on the first two-hour...