Producers Bill Leimbach and Mandaley Perkins will attend the inaugural ScreenSingapore event this week to raise financing for their $28 million epic Singapore Sunset in 3D.
Leimbach said the unofficial co-production will include many spectacular sequences, including air attacks on Singapore and the catastrophic sinking of Britain’s greatest battleship, the HMS Prince of Wales, along with the battle cruiser HMS Repulse.
“This is their Gallipoli, this is their mother story, their coming-of-age and it’s a story everyone wants to be told [and] see on the big screen,” he said.
Sanctum producer Andrew Wight will head the 3D production team, which will bring the World War II colonial romance to life.
Perkins, who also wrote the screenplay, said Singapore Sunset in 3D's central events had never been shown on the big screen despite Winston Churchill calling it the worst disaster in British history.
“It is a story of passions frustrated and frayed in a love triangle played out between a charismatic British Admiralty engineer, a beautiful rubber millionaire’s daughter and a feisty Australian nurse,” she said in a statement. The cast will also include a heroic Chinese songstress and a gregarious American naval consultant.
Last year, Leimbach produced the $9.5 million WWI film, Beneath Hill 60, which grossed about $3.2 million at Australian cinemas.
A rising number of Australian producers are exploring opportunities in Singapore. Australian-Singapore co-production Bait 3D is currently in post-production while another co-production, The Harvest, is in development.
The ScreenSingapore event, which begins on June 5, will promote the region as a new cinematic hub and has attracted several big names such as Tom Hanks and Oliver Stone.