Simon Pegg Joins Aussie Thriller KILL ME THREE TIMES

Looks like casting famous Brits in big Aussie movies is the new black. Or rather it was the old black, but once again has become so pronounced as to be worth commenting on. In the past 12 months we've had Rob Pattinson out for The Rover, Ewan McGregor for Son of a Gun, Tom Hardy was in Mad Max (although is that even really Australian anymore?), Colin Firth came out for The Railway Man and even Patrick managed to import its own British luminary of sorts, Charles Dance.

Now comes news that Kriv Stenders has cast Simon Pegg in his new noir thriller Kill Me Three Times, a directing gig he inherited when original helmer Greg Mclean went off to make Wolf Creek 2. Whether or not this is a sign of what sort of film this is remains to be seen, but the official synopsis says the story set in a sun-drenched Australian town where a young woman is the link between murder, blackmail and revenge.

Previously announced cast have included Alice Braga, Abbie Cornish, Ben Mendelsohn and Sullivan Stapleton, however as those names were announced about a year ago I'm guessing there's a few roles to be recast. Pegg has probably taken a role made vacant by Mendelsohn or Stapleton being booked up to the hilt. 

For those who are not aware of Stenders, his back catalogue is really worth checking out. I like to call him the Danny Boyle of Australia due to his penchant for dabbling in drastically different genres and not being afraid to revert to lower budget films in between bigger ones. His last film Red Dog was a monster success in Australia, taking $21m at the local box office alone, however only two films previously he made the experimental Boxing Day, which utilised only seven or eight long takes to capture a tense story set over one summer afternoon. Let's hope he brings some of that tension to Kill Me Three Times. In any case, this is one to watch closely.