John Marsden's Tomorrow When the War Began is held in high regard or hated by many an Australian school student. The book features in nearly every English course at some stage resulting in many people being familiar with the story. That story is now getting the movie treatment with Stuart Beattie, screenwriter for movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, taking the reins. Fans can now check out the first trailer at MovieFix. 

The movie features a host of local talent that have honed their craft on TV shows like Neighbours, Home and Away and H2O. While the quality of the shows themselves are questionable they have produced some good talent over the years and hopefully that's the case with this film. The trailer is surprisingly good. I remember cringing when I heard this film was being made and who some of the people were but it actually doesn't look half bad. The accents float between being undeniably Australian and somewhat neutral (?) which means they don't get irritating. The action, or what is shown, also seems well done with that explosion towards the end looking rather impressive. It's interesting how the trailer starts to show the film as a feel good roadtrip adventure with a group of friends and then bam, shit gets real and the country has been invaded.

For those of you who don't know the story follows a group of high school kids who, after returning from a camping trip in the Outback, discover that their town, and presumably the country, has been invaded. Everyone they know and love has been taken by the invading force and it is up to them to form a guerrilla force and fightback. Marsden's original book dredged up questions about how far the average person will go to fight back against evil and was a real survival tale. Hopefully the movie can bring some of these ideas in to the plot and not get too caught up in the romantic relationships and action. A good mix of all these elements should make it an enjoyable film. The people behind this will be hoping it takes off as Marsden wrote a whole series of Tomorrow books which they could possibly make a franchise out of.

The film will be released September 2nd 2010.