Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles | |
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Theatrical release poster
|
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Directed by | Simon Wincer |
Produced by |
Paul Hogan Lance Hool |
Written by | Eric Abrams Matthew Berry |
Based on | Characters by Paul Hogan |
Starring | Paul Hogan Linda Kozlowski Jere Burns Jonathan Banks |
Music by | Basil Poledouris |
Cinematography | David Burr |
Edited by | Terry Blythe |
Production
company |
Silver Lion Films
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Distributed by |
Paramount Pictures (United States) Universal Studios (International) |
Release date
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Australia 12 April 2001 United States 18 April 2001 |
Running time
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88 minutes |
Country | United States Australia |
Language | English |
Budget | $21.15 million |
Box office | $39.4 million |
Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (also known as Crocodile Dundee III) is a 2001 Australian-American comedy film, directed by Simon Wincer and starring Paul Hogan. It is the sequel to the 1988 film Crocodile Dundee II and the 1986 film Crocodile Dundee and the third film of the series. Hogan and Linda Kozlowski reprise their roles as Michael "Crocodile" Dundee and Sue Charlton, respectively. The film was shot on location in Los Angeles and in Queensland. Actor Paul Hogan reported that the inspiration for the storyline came during a tour of Litomyšl, Czech Republic in 1993.
At the beginning of the film, protagonist Michael "Crocodile" Dundee (Paul Hogan) is living in the Australian Outback with Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski) and their young son Mikey (Serge Cockburn). Because crocodile hunting has been made illegal, Mick is reduced to wrestling crocodiles for the entertainment of tourists, having as his rival in the business another Outback survivalist named Jacko (Alec Wilson). When an opportunity arises for Sue to become the Los Angeles bureau chief of a newspaper owned by her father, Mick and his family cross the Pacific to California.
In the United States, Mick and his son's encounters with the locals cause cross-cultural mishaps. Mick becomes an undercover amateur sleuth helping to probe the mysterious death of his wife's predecessor at the newspaper, while Mikey attends a local school, where he quickly impresses his classmates and teacher with his outback survival skills. Because the case takes up so much of their time, Mick and Sue eventually call in Jacko to babysit their son; Immediately, Jacko and Mikey's teacher become interested in each other.
It is revealed that the dead reporter had been investigating a film studio, which is about to make a sequel to the action film Lethal Agent, despite the title's commercial failure. Mick becomes suspicious when several paintings from Southern Europe are brought onto the set; although at first he suspects drug smuggling, the pictures themselves are revealed to be missing art from a museum in former Yugoslavia thought lost in the recent civil wars. They are to appear in the movie as mere props, to be publicly 'destroyed' in a scene in which they are set on fire, at which point they will have been exchanged for copies.