By FilmInk Staff
Ever since first making his mark with the he compelling 2000 22-minute thriller The Director and the hilarious 2001 Tropfest triumph The Lighter, Australian filmmaker Patrick Hughes has been delivering imaginative, rock-solid entertainment with a classy commercial sheen. His debut feature film – 2010’s beautifully burnished local neo-western Red Hill – instantly established Hughes as a director well-versed in genre filmmaking and big themes, and he was promptly tapped by Hollywood to take the reins on The Expendables 3, a mammoth slab of big name action and bone-rattling set-pieces. The film marked Hughes as a director comfortable with big budgets and big stars, and sealed the deal with the highly successful Ryan Reynolds-Samuel L. Jackson action comedies The Hitman’s Bodyguard and its sequel Hitman’s Bodyguard’s Wife.
Now Patrick Hughes is headed back down under to establish a Melbourne office for his production company Huge Film. “I always wanted to build a company locally that creates large scale, high concept movies for international audiences and now is the perfect time to do so,” says Hughes. “For the first time in my career, Australia’s location incentives are globally competitive, so making big-budget action movies on my home soil is now a viable reality.”

Hughes will be joined in the venture by his writing partner James Beaufort and local producer/director Greg McLean, the man responsible for the phenomenon that is Wolf Creek. “Australia is an incredible place to make movies with an abundance of unique creative talent both behind and in front of the camera, and with the awesome slate Patrick has lined up, as well as several exciting original projects in the pipeline, I’m thrilled to be joining Huge Film.”
The company already has a full slate. Last month, Hughes announced the sale of the company’s action project War Machine (which he will write, direct and produce) to Lionsgate, while Netflix has just announced that Hughes is set to reignite his long-gestating reimagining of Gareth Evans’ Indonesian cult classic The Raid, which he is writing with Beaufort. The Raid will be set in Philadelphia, where an elite undercover DEA task force climb a ladder of cartel informants to catch an elusive kingpin. Hughes will direct the feature film, with Michael Bay & XYZ Films producing.

Hughes and Beaufort are also writing the final instalment of the highly successful Hitman’s Bodyguard franchise, the title of which is still under wraps. Sony’s The Man From Toronto, meanwhile, directed by Hughes and starring Kevin Hart, Woody Harrelson, Kaley Cuoco, and Ellen Barkin, completed post-production in Los Angeles and will be released in August 2022. “We’ve got some great projects in development and I’m excited to take my partnership with Patrick to the next level,” says James Beaufort (the Red Overdrive Ranger for trainspotters).
Expect big, huge even, things from Huge Film…
Click here for our interview with Patrick Hughes for The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard.