Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
The global obsession with high-stakes, closeted sports drama is coming to WA, and it’s trading ice hockey skates for footy boots.
In a massive coup for the local screen industry, WA-based production company Deadset Pictures has secured screen rights to Yeah the Boys, the acclaimed adult novel by award-winning Geraldton-born author Holden Sheppard.
The book — a semi-sequel to the smash-hit Stan series Invisible Boys — is being fast-tracked into an eight episode international television series. Exactly which international streaming giant has snapped up the rights can’t yet be revealed.
But producers say this Perth-set gay AFL drama will be Australia’s answer to the viral LGBTQ+ sports romance phenomenon Heated Rivalry.
Deadset Pictures co-founder Steve Pennells said the global success of stories like the Canadian hit show, which streams on HBO Max, proved there is a mainstream appetite for sexy, emotionally bruised, gay sports drama.
“It’s made it easier for us. Heated Rivalry surprised everyone and showed that there is a market for it if it’s told well,” Pennells said.
“The success of Heated Rivalry has shown there’s a huge audience for gay sports drama when it’s sexy, emotional and unashamedly mainstream.
“Yeah the Boys can be Australia’s version of that, but rawer, dirtier, a bit bogan and much more local.
“This is footy, not hockey. It’s Perth and Geraldton, not Toronto. It’s Pride Round, locker rooms, country-town shame, Northbridge at night and the brutal Australian pressure on men to perform straightness even when it’s killing them.”
Yeah the Boys follows star AFL full-forward Kade “Hammer” Hammersmith, a man whose tightly controlled life begins to fracture when he publicly attacks the league’s Pride Round — all while desperately hiding the truth about his own sexuality.
When blackmail threats threaten to expose him, Hammer is pulled back into the orbits of Zeke and Charlie, two estranged schoolmates who know exactly what he has spent years trying to bury. The show will explore the crushing cost of staying hidden in a city where everyone knows your business.
For Deadset Pictures, filming anywhere other than WA was out of the question.
Pennell said the series is being developed with a clear ambition to put Perth on screen with the kind of scale and confidence usually reserved for Sydney, Melbourne, or Hollywood.
“This is a story that could only come out of Western Australia,” Pennells, a Walkley-award-winning journalist from his time as a news reporter with The West Australian, said.
“The heat, the distance, the footy culture, the country-town history, the gay spaces… all of that is baked into the book. It’s Perth as Perth, not substituting itself for somewhere else.”
The production is expected to bring millions of dollars in direct screen expenditure into the State, providing a massive boost to local crews, cast, suppliers and hospitality.
“It’s always been important to me that screen adaptations of my books are filmed locally in WA using our WA talent and locations… WA’s urban and gay spaces will be showcased like never before, and I’m so pumped to see it,” Sheppard said.
