Luhrmann reportedly goes with Ledger after Crowe flies

May 31, 2006, 10:36 GMT

Heath Ledger EPA/Danny Moloshok

Sydney - There was no word Wednesday from Australian director Baz Luhrmann on a report in the New York Post that his 'sweeping romance' to rival Gone with the Wind will star Brokeback Mountain actor Health Ledger and Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman as lovers.

The paper reported that New Zealand-born Russell Crowe, who won an Oscar for his starring role in 'Gladiator,' had been dumped from the big-budget epic in favour of Ledger because he insisted on vetting the script before signing on.

'Baz doesn't publicly comment on his casting processes and currently he has made no final decision on the film, who is in it, or when and where it will be shot,' a spokeswoman for Luhrmann told Sydney's Daily Telegraph.

Last year the Moulin Rouge director told the Daily Telegraph that Kidman and Crowe had taken a pay cut to help convince Twentieth Century Fox to finance the film.

'Russell, Nicole and I have been wanting to do a large Australian piece for a very long time,' Luhrmann said. 'We have some of the most extraordinary landscape on the planet and we want to get two of the most extraordinary actors in the world to put them, acting, in that landscape.'

The epic romance, which was scheduled to start filming in Australia this year, is set in the 1930s and 1940s and is to have a scene recreating the bombing of the far-north city of Darwin by Japanese fighter bombers in World War II.

Locations have been selected in the tropical north-east and in the Outback, but how much is shot outside and how much at Sydney's Fox Studios is yet to be decided.

Australians are hoping that the long-promised epic, which hasn't a title yet and has now reportedly lost a big drawcard, will fare better than 'Eucalyptus,' the film project based on Murray Bail's novel of the same name.

'Eucalyptus,' which was to be the first pairing of Kidman and Crowe, collapsed in a heap last year after bickering among its leading lights.

Australian-born Rupert Murdoch's Fox Searchlight Pictures had put up the money.

Crowe and Kidman had signed contracts restricting them to a maximum US$500,000 each for the film.

Despite Crowe promising that the film would do for Australian tourism what 'Lord of the Rings' did for New Zealand, the US$ 25-million project was abandoned two days before shooting started.