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The pair's film, "Ticket to Paradise", received
a Queensland state grant of A$6.4 million ($4.90 million) to
shoot in the Whitsunday Islands and elsewhere in the state this
year.
Other stars to land in Australia in recent months for film and
TV shoots include Matt Damon, Mark Whalberg, Natalie Portman,
Zac Efron, Idris Elba, Liam Neeson, Melissa McCarthy and Tom
Hanks.
Nicole Kidman and Chris Hemsworth are among Australians to bring
big budget productions home, even as the influx of heavy hitters
has sparked some criticism amid a government cap on Australian
citizen arrivals and reports that some stars avoided hotel
quarantine.
Australia's aggressive response to the coronavirus pandemic,
including lockdowns and border closures, has slowed community
transmission to a trickle, making it popular in Hollywood for
so-called "runaway productions."
Filmmakers have also cited a A$400 million ($306 million)
increase in Australian location grants since 2020 as a reason
for choosing the country.
"Because of our strong health response and through the efforts
of all Queenslanders in dealing with the global pandemic, we've
emerged as one of the safest places in the world to film," said
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.
In "Ticket to Paradise", which is being made for Comcast Corp's
Universal Pictures, the Whitsundays will stand in for Bali,
Indonesia, as Clooney and Roberts play a divorced couple
attending their daughter's wedding.
Roberts is also due to shoot "Gaslit", a TV series about the
Watergate scandal, in Sydney, with Sean Penn and Australia's
Joel Edgerton, who would also direct, the Sydney Morning Herald
reported.
Among the high profile productions, Damon, Wahlberg, Hemsworth
and Portman are filming a Thor sequel, local media reported.
Australian-raised Kidman returned home with "Bridesmaids" star
McCarthy to shoot "Nine Perfect Strangers", a series for The
Walt Disney Company's Hulu, based on a book by the author of the
novel "Big Little Lies", who is also Australian.
Hanks filmed an Elvis Presley biopic in 2020 after initial
filming was postponed by the pandemic and Hanks's own COVID-19
diagnosis.
TWO-TIER SYSTEM
The influx has generated some criticism about a two-tier
quarantine system, following reports of visiting celebrites
getting permission to skip two-week hotel stints under guard to
isolate in more salubrious private homes.
The federal government, meanwhile, has a cap on the number of
Australians allowed to return, prompting anger among some
citizens seeking to come home.
"If they don't comply and it's not done well, we have a
problem," said Mary-Louise McLaws, a professor of epidemiology
at University of New South Wales, referring to the visiting
stars.
"The public need to know exactly how the authorities are
ensuring that they are remaining at home and they're not going
off to the gym or the golf course, or they're not having the gym
instructor come and do a workout with these travellers who are
incubating."
($1 = 1.3048 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Byron Kaye; editing by Jane Wardell)
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