Wolf Creek's John Jarratt on the prowl for sequel prey John Jarratt in a scene from 2005 film Wolf Creek. Source: Supplied WOLF Creek 2 has begun filming in South Australia although we're none the wiser about who has been cast in the sequel as the hapless backpackers preyed upon by John Jarratt's Mick Taylor. Greg McLean, who directed the 2005 original, which earned more than $US27 million, is back as director working with a script by Aaron Sterns. It is shooting in SA, as David Michod's The Rover is in pre-production in the state. Michod's next feature after the award-winning Animal Kingdom is a chase thriller of the future that will partly shoot in the stunning Flinders Ranges. It stars Robert Pattinson from the Twilight series and Guy Pearce. AUSSIE Peter Cornwell has begun filming his second studio feature, Mercy. The director of the award-winning 2003 short Ward 13 quietly made the US horror film, The Haunting in Connecticut, in 2008; the film earned more than $US50m in the US alone. Mercy, based on the Stephen King short story Gramma, about two kids looking after their grandmother, who is a witch, stars another Australian, Frances O'Connor, and Dylan McDermott. It is produced by the producer of the Paranormal Activity series, Jason Blum, Mary Viola and Charlie's Angels director McG. IT'S easy to take the continued international success of our actors for granted. Last week was a case in point. Of the five Hollywood studio films that began production last week, three of them featured Australians in lead roles (one of them being the aforementioned Mercy, directed by an Aussie). Jacki Weaver's prolific run continues ahead of her Academy Award nomination for Silver Linings Playbook. She ventured to the US to begin filming Parklands, the film produced by Tom Hanks about the day of president John F. Kennedy's assassination in November 1963. It will be released as a 50th anniversary "celebration." Weaver stars opposite Paul Giamatti, Billy Bob Thornton and Zac Efron. Weaver will be seen next month in Chan-wook Park's Stoker, opposite Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska. And Hugh Jackman began production on Prisoners, from Denis Villeneuve, the director of the stunning Canadian film Incendies. The Warner Bros Pictures film also stars Melissa Leo, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Viola Davis, Maria Bello and Terrence Howard. It concerns a father's search for his two children that reveals some dastardly elderly neighbours. Other films beginning production are Jerry Lewis's first film since 1995's Funny Bones, Max Rose, and it's fair to say one might not expect an Australian to be cast in the other: Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas. Oh, and two films completed filming last week, one of which, Jose Padilha's RoboCop reboot, starred Abbie Cornish alongside Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson, Jackie Earle Haley, Jennifer Ehle and Michael Keaton. MEANWHILE, Dark Shadows and Beneath Hill 60 star Bella Heathcote has been cast opposite American Horror Story's Evan Peters in The Preppie Connection, the next film by The War Within director helmer Joe Castelo. The film is based on the true story of a group of private school students who ran a drug distribution operation in the early 1980s. AND Bryan Singer, the director of the next X-Men instalment, tweeted on the weekend about the band he is getting together again. He confirmed X-Men: Days of Future will reunite Anna Paquin (aka Rogue), Shawn Ashmore (Rogue's lover Iceman), and Ellen Page (Kitty Pryde) with Patrick Stewart's Charles Xavier, Ian McKellen's Magneto, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. REEL Time congratulates Natalie Miller for her appointment as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). Miller is previously a Medal of the Order (OAM) recipient and was recognised for distinguished service to the film industry through the promotion of screen culture, as a mentor to emerging filmmakers, particularly women, and contributions to advisory and professional organisations. Reel Time can vouch for her tireless and generous work particularly as a mentor to young people, in all aspects of the industry as distributor (Sharmill Films), exhibitor (Cinema Nova, Longford Cinema and others), publicist (Melbourne Film Festival) and enthusiast. The recent establishment of the Natalie Miller Fellowship, an annual grant for women in the screen industry, is particularly laudable. THE second AACTA Awards Luncheon, hosted by Adam Elliot on Monday, was fun. The AACTA awards ceremony to be held tonight at Sydney's The Star promises to be a little more serious. If nothing else, they have attracted the "big four" of Australian acting, Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, Geoffrey Rush and ceremony host Russell Crowe. The "big four" being this country's four living Academy Award acting winners (sadly, the fifth is Heath Ledger). Other guests include Richard Roxburgh, Hugo Weaving, Jack Thompson, The Great Gatsby's Elizabeth Debicki, Magda Szubanski, Noah Taylor, the stars of The Sapphires and the women on which it was based. Sydney FC football star Alessandro Del Piero will also be at the game.