Outrageous New Look for Fortune

The sixth season of Outrageous Fortune — and the first to be shot on HD — wrapped production Friday.

Producer South Pacific Pictures has shot other series on HD, most notably Go Girls, which is to resume shortly on TV2, and Diplomatic Immunity, which was axed after only one season on TV One.

It hadn’t considered the higher resolution for its flagship drama because so many seasons already had been made in SD.

But with HD filming becoming more affordable, other markets wanting delivery of shows on HD, and Outrageous Fortune still rating outrageously well, it opted to go HD for the 18 episodes that TV3 will air later in the year. (Expect another HD take on Outrageous Fortune with the second US stab at re-making it, Scoundrels; ABC has commissioned eight episodes, with Nip/Tuck’s Richard Levine and Lyn Greene producing, and Sideways’ Virginia Madsen and Desperate Housewives’ Neal McDonough starring.)

South Pacific Pictures also is soon to shoot another contemporary comedy/drama series for TV3, The Almighty Johnsons. From Outrageous Fortune creators Rachel Lang and James Griffin, it’s about four fair-dinkum brothers who happen to the incarnations of Norse gods.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, Michelle Ang, who plays Outrageous Fortune’s Tracy Hong, starts filming the South Pacific Pictures movie, Girl Meets Boy.

She plays the lead in the romantic comedy/coming-of-age adaptation of the award-winning 2005 documentary Banana in a Nutshell by Roseanne Liang, who is the movie’s director.

Ang’s character is a Chinese NZ-born over-achiever who risks being disowned by her traditionalist father when she falls in love with a Kiwi (Go Girls’ Matt Whelan).

Girl Meets Boy is scheduled to open theatrically this time next year.