The story of Rupert Murdoch’s rise to become the world’s biggest media mogul looks set to become an Australian TV telemovie.
Screen Australia has provided funding development for the work which is being written by Bob Ellis and Stephen Ramsay.
The announcement comes days after Southern Star’s production of Howzat, the story of how Australian media mogul Kerry Packer took on the cricket establishment delivered the Nine Network with 2m+ ratings.
The series has the working title of The News of the World.
The British Sunday tabloid the telemovie is named after was closed by Murdoch last year in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.
Bob Ellis wrote the Australian journalism drama Newsfront and most recently ABC’s Infamous Victory: Ben Chifley’s Battle for Coal while Stephen Ramsey wrote and directed The Baby Boomers Picture Show and Flashbacks.
Ellis told Mumbrella: “What we have done starts at 1960 with his early career when he bought the Daily Telegraph off Packer and then to when he bought News of the World and how he burst on the world of America and became a friend of Nixon and got a license as a foreigner media owner.”
With legal cases still underway over the phone hacking, Ellis told Mumbrella the conclusion was still unwritten. The telemovie is yet to be picked up by a network, Ellis said.
Ellis said, although nothing was locked in, his first preference for the lead would be New Zealand actor Marton Csokas, of South Solitary, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Dead Europe and the forthcoming Noah, with Russell Crowe.
As well as the telemovie, Ellis said the team was also working on a 14-part miniseries to follow.
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