Queensland-made Nautilus sets sail after dumped series finds Australian home

One of the recent great blows to Australia’s screen industry was when last year Disney decided to dump Nautilus from its release schedule.

The big budget production was, in the words of Screen Queensland chief executive Jacqui Feeney, “one of the largest series to be made in Queensland”, and employed hundreds of local cast and crew.

It filmed for most of 2022 and took up half the soundstages at the Village Roadshow lot outside of the Gold Coast, where it had built a full-scale submarine. The Age put the production cost at $300 million.

So it was wild that Disney chose to axe the show while it was still in post-production but unlike other projects that met a similar fate at that time, such as WB’s Batgirl, the House of Mouse put Nautilus up for sale, rather than shelve it permanently.

After more than a year in limbo, Nautilus has finally found a home in Australia with Stan confirming on Thursday it has picked up the distribution rights for this market. American network AMC bought the rights last year for the US and Canada while Amazon in August acquired it for the UK and Ireland.

The deal means Australian audiences will be able to watch a series that was technically a UK production but because it was filmed here with primarily local talent, might as well be one of ours.

Nautilus is based on Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and the series takes its name from the submarine in the story.

The show is centred on Captain Nemo, an Indian prince who became a prisoner of the East India Company at a time when merchants amassed enormous global power. After his escape in Nautilus, the sub, he sets off on a series of sea-faring adventures while being pursued by the bad guys.

The series is an origin story of sorts for the anti-colonialist Captain Nemo and tells the tale from his perspective, a collection of swash-buckling heroics with an anti-colonialist edge.

A trailer released with the announcement features clips of various set-ups including underwater scenes, horse chases, naval battles, the Arctic and magical realism creatures.

Captain Nemo is played by British actor Shazad Latif, who is known for his roles in Star Trek: Discovery, rom-com What’s Love Got to Do With It alongside Lily James, and Spooks.

The Australian cast included Georgia Flood (Apples Never Fall, Wentworth), Pacharo Mzembe (Wakefield, Harrow), Benedict Hardie (Carmen, The Invisible Man) and Darren Gilshenan (Population 11, Colin From Accounts).

Guest stars include Richard E. Grant and Anna Torv.

Stan hasn’t set a premiere date yet beyond “coming soon” but it is expected to be before the end of the year.

In August 2023, Disney announced it would dump Nautilis and the Canadian-filmed series The Spiderwick Chronicles from its upcoming slate. Both series had finished filming and were in post-production.

At the time, the major studios and streamers were under intense pressure from Wall Street investors to cut costs. Disney was in the middle of an initiative to trim $US3 billion from its non-sports programming, which included taking up to $US1.8 billion in tax write downs.

By cancelling a not-yet-released series or removing existing ones from its streaming platform as it did to Willow, Artemis and The Mighty Ducks sequel series, Disney is able to cull their value from its books, thereby reducing its tax burden.

Rival studio Warner Bros was the most aggressive with that strategy, axing the $US80 million Batgirl production as well as Scoob! Holiday Haunt and nixed from its Max streaming platform Westworld, Made for Love and The Nevers.