{"id":17578,"date":"2022-10-04T08:50:41","date_gmt":"2022-10-04T12:50:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2022-10-05T09:51:32","modified_gmt":"2022-10-05T13:51:32","slug":"last-king-of-the-cross-delivers-elevated-drama-gritty-authenticity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/last-king-of-the-cross-delivers-elevated-drama-gritty-authenticity\/","title":{"rendered":"Last King of The Cross Delivers Elevated Drama &amp; Gritty Authenticity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The operatic story of two brothers, Sam and John Ibrahim\u2014who organize the street but lose each other across their ascent to power\u2014plays out in <em>Last King of The Cross<\/em>. The 10&#215;1-hour elevated serialized drama, starring Tim Roth and Lincoln Younes, tracks John Ibrahim\u2019s rise from a poverty-stricken immigrant with no education, money or prospects to Australia\u2019s most infamous nightclub mogul in <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/newsletters.worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/img\/2022-10-03-Mark-Fennessy.jpg\" alt=\"***Image***\" width=\"175\" height=\"209\" \/>Sydney\u2019s Kings Cross district in the late 1980s.<\/p>\n<p>The series, which comes from Mark Fennessy\u2019s recently launched indie HELIUM Pictures and is sold by Cineflix Rights, is inspired by Ibrahim\u2019s best-selling autobiography of the same name.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA chance meeting with John Ibrahim at a Lady Gaga concert became the beginning of a unique relationship with a truly fascinating man,\u201d says Fennessy, producer on the series. \u201cJohn then reached out to seek my advice on the structure of the book he was writing at the time. This turned into a much bigger conversation and ultimately a journey that extended to a four-year process in delivering a major scripted television event.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kieran Darcy-Smith (<em>Wolf Creek<\/em>, <em>The Duel<\/em>) serves as writer and director on the project, which was greenlit by Paramount+ in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a producer, I\u2019m all about the script, so the writing process was long and challenging but highly productive,\u201d Fennessy says. \u201cAmong our team, there was a mix of youth and experience, involving much discussion, debate and argument. The fundamental premise was always about total \u2018authenticity,\u2019 and this is reflected in the diversity and strength of the casting. We have a premium frontline cast, which really complements the story, but even in the supporting and secondary roles, we sought the most believable actors. We had to deliver on the authenticity of the gritty world we were portraying. Even the smallest of roles had to be real.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He says that HELIUM and the entire production team were committed to faithfully recreating the infamous world of Sydney\u2019s Kings Cross circa the late 1980s and early \u201990s, likening it to a mini-Atlantic City, \u201cnot quite a mile long, with every form of criminality on offer.\u201d Fennessy <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/newsletters.worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/img\/2022-10-03-LastKingofTheCross_Cineflix.jpg\" alt=\"***Image***\" width=\"290\" height=\"220\" \/>adds, \u201cSo, we built it from the ground up in a car park in western Sydney. With much of the action taking place at night, this gave us the latitude to deliver the scripted story in a setting that is a character all of its own. The set itself was populated by literally hundreds of extras bringing the Strip to life in an authentic way\u2014from streetwalkers and the homeless to the Bikies and the Silvertails on a night out. And we were shooting in the middle of a major rain event, so we used this to our advantage, with our DOP working with the directors to deliver beautifully framed imagery in cool tones with flashes of color from the neon of the night.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Fennessy adds that while <em>Last King of The Cross<\/em> is inspired by true events, there are many storylines and characters that have been fictionalized for the purposes of dramatization.<\/p>\n<p>The drama series, he says, plays in a similar space to <em>The Sopranos<\/em>, <em>Gangs of London<\/em>, <em>Gomorrah<\/em> and <em>Goodfellas<\/em>, \u201cbut it does so in a refreshingly different and authentic manner and with significant points of difference from any of these\u2014including the diversity of its characters. It is an immigrant crime story that is salacious, violent and gripping and all set in the decadent, crime-infested but very sexy district of Kings Cross in 1980s\/\u201990s Sydney\u2014a delicious contrast to the usual Australian TV backdrops of Bondi Beach and the harsh Outback.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cineflix Rights is taking the title out to the global market at MIPCOM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Fennessy, founder of HELIUM Pictures and producer of Last King of The Cross, talks about bringing John Ibrahim\u2019s best-selling autobiography to life in the new serialized drama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":350,"featured_media":17579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,70],"tags":[3462,4857],"class_list":["post-17578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-profiles","category-top-stories","tag-cineflix-rights","tag-helium-pictures","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Last King of The Cross Delivers Elevated Drama &amp; 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