No, Variety, Please, You Need To Say the Whole Title

No, Variety, Please, You Need To Say the Whole Title

Boy Swallows Universe, an adaption of one of Australia’s most iconic award-winning books, is set to be filmed in Queensland and produced by Netflix but uuh… huh, you know, sometimes it pays to not abbreviate things.

Variety, you do good work guys, but this isn’t the name. You can’t just abbreviate Boy Swallows Universe by removing ‘universe’. Unless you want to send Twitter into a flurry.

Boy Swallows Universe is already a legend of Australian literature, diving into drug addiction, poverty and domestic violence. It’s a coming-of-age story set in 1980s Australia that doesn’t pull any punches on really tough issues.

But the boy doesn’t simply swallow, Variety, he Swallows Universe. 

Now, as you can probably expect, there have been a multitude of people on Twitter that presumably don’t know that the book and forthcoming Netflix adaption are both called Boy Swallows Universe, judging from the comments criticising the shortened name and just riffing with it.

But Aussies on Twitter have come out to have their fun.

Should they abbreviate and change the name to Boy Swallows in honour of this slip-up? No, they probably shouldn’t. Not sure what Variety meant by this, the press release was pretty clear about the name.

Speaking of said press release, Boy Swallows Universe will be filmed in Brisbane from August this year.

“Brisbane-based author Trent Dalton captivated the world with his brutal yet magical tale set in 1980s Brisbane among iconic local landmarks such as Boggo Road Gaol and Brisbane City Hall’s clock tower,” said Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

“This uniquely Brisbane production will also boost our local screen industry by injecting around $33 million into the Queensland economy and creating approximately 185 jobs for cast and crew, and an estimated 2500 extras.”

Even if international media gets the name wrong, it’s always nice to see Australian stories on the world stage.

Boy Swallows Universe is being produced by Brouhaha Entertainment (based in Sydney) and Netflix. Just this week, Netflix acquired Australian studio Animal Logic.

Boy Swallows doesn’t exist.

Anyway, as you were.