September 18th, 2009 12:19 am

Aussie soap stars go to war

Former ‘Neighbours’ and ‘Home and Away’ stars gear up for eerily similar projects, ‘Tomorrow When the War Began’ and a remake of ‘Red Dawn’.

Caitlin Stasey (‘Neighbours’) and Lincoln Lewis (‘Home and Away’) are set to star in Stuart Beattie’s film adaptation of James Marden’s novel ‘Tomorrow When the War Began’.

19-year old Stasey has been cast as Ellie Linton, the main character in the ‘Tomorrow’ series.

“There was an exhaustive audition process and I have been privileged to see some very talented young actors,” said Beattie.

“Caitlin captured the perfect balance of intelligence, vulnerability and strength that is essential to this character.”

Lewis, 21, announced his casting as Kevin Holmes in the film following his departure from ‘Home and Away’ on Seven’s ‘Sunrise’.

“I will be filming my last scenes as Geoff Campbell tomorrow, and I am going to miss Summer Bay so much – the cast and crew have become my family over the last two and a half years. Ray Meagher has been a mentor and I have learnt so much from my time at Home and Away.”

“I cannot thank the fans and viewers enough for their support over my time on the show, hopefully they will enjoy Tomorrow When The War Began.”

The series of books follows a group of teenagers who band together to fight, following Australia’s invasion from an unknown enemy.

‘Tomorrow When the War Began’ will mark Australian screenwriter Stuart Beattie’s directorial debut, after penning a number of big Hollywood features, including ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl’, ‘G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra’, ‘Australia’ and a spec script for the highly anticipated ‘Halo’ movie.

Filming on ‘Tomorrow’ is set to take place in the Hunter Valley at the end of September, followed by production at Sydney’s Fox Studios Australia.

‘Tomorrow When the War Began’, which is pegged as the new ‘Twilight’ or ‘Harry Potter’ film phenomenon, is being produced by Ambience Entertainment and Omnilab with assistance from Screen Australia the New South Wales Film and Television Office. Paramount Pictures will distribute.

Meanwhile, production forges ahead on the remake of 80’s film ‘Red Dawn’, which starred the late Patrick Swayze.

Like the ‘Tomorrow’ series, ‘Red Dawn’ follows a group of teenagers who look to save their town from an invasion.

The new ‘Red Dawn’ is similarly being directed by a first time director, Dan Bradley, who served as a second assistant director on ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ and ‘Quantum of Solace’. Carl Ellsworth penned the screenplay.

To draw yet another eerily similarity between the two projects, ‘Red Dawn’ is set to star former Australian soap stars stars Isabel Lucas, 24, and Chris Hemsworth, 26, of ‘Home and Away’ fame.

Both young actors have started to make names for themselves in Hollywood.

Lucas recently starred in ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ and is set to appear in HBO and the Seven Network’s war mini-series ‘The Pacific’ from executive producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.

Hemsworth, who made his big US debut in J.J. Abram’s ‘Star Trek’ is currently prepping to star in Kenneth Branagh’s epic ‘Thor’.

Lucas will play Erica Mason in ‘Red Dawn’, played by Lea Thompson in the original, Hemsworth will play Jed Eckert, the role originally portrayed by Swayze.

‘Red Dawn’ is being produced by Contrafilm and will be distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in North America.

With both ‘Tomorrow When the War Began’ and ‘Red Dawn’ scheduled for a 2010 release, it could make for a very interesting war at the box office, no pun intended.