Dropbear: quick links
The first trailer is here for Dropbear, a new Australian horror comedy that turns one of the country’s longest-running pranks into a full-blown creature feature.
Produced in association with Six Foot Four Productions for US-based distributor ITN Distribution, the South Australian-shot film leans into a proudly B-grade sensibility, playing the infamous myth of the killer koala as both joke and genuine threat. ScreenHub first reported on the film in July.
While the drop bear gag has circulated for decades – spinning tales of a carnivorous, tree-dwelling koala ready to ambush tourists from above – this is one of the first times the folklore has been given a large-form genre treatment.
Watch the Dropbear trailer
The film follows a group of American tourists who sign up for a low-budget outback tour run by two questionable operators. What begins as a deliberately staged scare soon devolves into actual horror, as the group encounter a territory ruled by the so-called Koala King and an army of chlamydia-riddled dropbears. From there, it shifts quickly into survival mode, bloodshed and a series of knowingly schlocky monster set-pieces.
Writer, director and producer John deCaux developed the film entirely through his independent production workflow in South Australia, allowing for in-house shooting, editing, VFX and delivery.
The word on Dropbear
‘Dropbear is proudly B grade, proudly Australian and proudly ridiculous,’ deCaux said in a statement announcing the trailer. ‘This film leans into the joke Australians have told tourists for decades and then takes it to the most extreme place possible. It was built to be a crowd movie.’
The film stars Conner Pullinger, Jessica Burgess, Adam Ovadia, Caymond, Kieren McNamara and Lucas Andrews, with Yoz Mensch portraying the Koala King. Production design is by Shannyn McKay, with costumes by Emilia Mcdonald. James Gleeson serves as editor, and Bill Palmer composed the score. The production was supported through the City of Port Adelaide Enfield Arts and Culture Grant program.
Creature features have a long-running, if often niche, presence in Australia’s screen landscape, from 1984’s Razorback to this year’s Dangerous Animals, ‘killer croc’ films Black Water and Rogue (both released in 2007), and 1987’s Howling III to 2022’s Carnifex.
Read: Eco-horror and Australian films pair well – and offer hope
Dropbear will premiere in Adelaide in December before expanding into select cinemas nationally. A regional touring cinema schedule is also planned, with home media and streaming release windows anticipated in 2026, though platforms are yet to be confirmed.
Dropbear is in cinemas nationally this December.
Also on ScreenHub: Empire City: Gerard Butler heads to Melbourne for new action thriller
Gerard Butler is set to arrive in Melbourne this month to begin production on the new film, Empire City.
Empire City is a feature action thriller starring Butler and Hayley Atwell, fresh from her run in the Mission: Impossible franchise.
The plot centres on a hostage crisis unfolding inside the fictional Clybourn Building, a towering New York landmark. Butler plays Rhett, a firefighter who teams up with his NYPD-officer wife Dani (Atwell) to navigate a building under siege and attempt a high-stakes rescue.
The film will shoot across multiple locations in Melbourne, including Docklands Studios.
As reported in Collider, the film was first presented to industry buyers at the Cannes Film Festival last year, where Butler emerged as the top-line attachment and Atwell later joined the cast in late-stage pre-production.
Behind the camera, the film is directed by Michael Matthews, who previously helmed Love and Monsters, a creature feature that earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects. The script is by Brian Tucker (Secret Invasion) and S. Craig Zahler, the filmmaker behind cult Western-horror Bone Tomahawk and the crime thriller Dragged Across Concrete.
The Melbourne shoot brings producer Paul Currie back to local ground. Currie, known for Hacksaw Ridge and the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man, is producing alongside Marc Butan (The Trial of the Chicago 7) and Alan Siegel (Den of Thieves, Paris Has Fallen).
For Melbourne’s screen workers, the production offers sustained employment on a globally marketed feature, with hundreds of crew roles expected to be filled locally.
Butler currently has multiple sequels in active development, including Greenland 2: Migration and Den of Thieves 3, along with a return as Stoick in the live-action adaptation of How to Train Your Dragon.
Read more.
