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Channel Nine announces Packer/Murdoch drama series, Schappelle Corby telemovie

A drama mini-series in the vein of Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War has been commissioned by Channel Nine for their 2013 programming schedule.

Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch Story comes from the same creators as Howzat! and will follow the battle between Sir Frank Packer and Rupert Murdoch between 1960-1975.

Howzat! attracted audiences of over two million when it aired in August this year, and actor Lachy Hulme received rave reviews for his portrayal of Packer.

The title roles in The Power Games are yet to be cast.

The script, still in development, is based on archives and will charter “how the epic ambitions of Rupert Murdoch and the Packer family collided as they battled for control of Australia’s newspaper and television industries.”

Channel Nine has also announced another telemovie, Schappelle, which will tell the story of Gold Coast beauty therapist Schappelle Corby, who was arrested in Bali in 2004 after marijuana was discovered in her boogie board bag.

Inspired by the bestseller Sins of the Father by journalist Eamonn Duff, Schappelle will plot Corby’s ill-fated holiday, the ensuing media attention and, “lift the lid on what went behind the headlines.”

The project will be produced by Fremantle Media (The King, Killing Time, Devil’s Dust.)
 

  1. Congratulations Channel 9! Now that Schapelle has her clemency, a balanced version of the “whole” debacle is finally going to be aired. Of course even before its release the Corby family is planning to sue and we hope you have budgeted for that. The Corby supported group, “Expendable Project” are mounting a campaign to boycott advertisers claiming Channel 9 exhibits “the grasping lust for profit exceeds any pretense of decency or morality”. The Ralph Magazine photos of Schapelle touting her sister’s semi-naked centerfold to up the price for the article…all why she was “catatonic according to her sister on 60 minutes”. Now that is a REAL “grasping lust for profit”. Her isolation from the many activities at the jail where she could communicate in her own language with western volunteers by insisting she take “a vow of silence day” when they visited; her families refusal to get her to the jail dental clinic where she could have been referred to outside dentists for needed dental care presumably to keep up the pretense of mistreatment. Now that “exceeds any pretense of decency or morality”. It is one thing for a journalist like Eamonn Duff to do his job and be paid for it. It is quite another for the family of a convicted drug trafficker to profit from and add to the misery of their family member… I also thought it was illegal for the family to profit. The unfair and untrue misinformation about poor Schapelle not seeing TV for 8 years touted on 60 minutes by her sister. Perhaps some photos of the TV in the women’s block, the Kerobokan Jail Medical and Dental Clinic, the rehabilitative projects including art, sewing, cooking, reflexology, singing etc should be distributed. They have all been available to the media for years. Call Sydney Morning Herald Sunday people as they have them or contact me and I can send them to you.
    It will be good to finally see some balance in the media on this whole sorry, embarrassing for all Australians, debacle. Well done Channel 9!

  2. So, Nine intend to profit from smears against a dead man. Yes, in Australia dead men can’t sue, hence a string of fabrications against Schapelle Corby’s deceased father, for profit of course.

    Is this what the Australian media has come to?

    What next, the gallery of those pretending it’s ok, and apparently pouring more vitriol at this suffering family, like the poster above?

    Australia? Words sometimes escape me.

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