David Elfick hired Bob Ellis to write the screenplay because he had admired the musical play written by Ellis, "The Legend of King O'Malley". Ellis says he wrote the first draft with Howard Rubie, who was a former cameraman for Cinesound and thought he was going to direct it. Anne Brooksbank later contributed to the script. Phillip Noyce was then hired as director and worked with Ellis. Ellis fell out with Noyce and demanded his name be taken off the credits. Ellis said: "There was some nonsense about how long it was; we'd set it out, one short scene per page and it finally came out about 300 pages or so but, in fact, it was maybe two and a quarter hours long, which wasn't too bad then or now for something that covered 10 years. But a legend started about how huge it was. When I saw it, I was appalled. I could only see what was missing and abruptly took my name off it. Then when it won all the prizes, I sort of shamefacedly put my name back on it. It was a quite painful experience and I think a very good film, but not as good a film as might have been made. One of the models for it was the film, Yanks, which was a moment in history in particular culture perfectly captured. It had a lot more than the politics in it but, partly because of the budget and partly because of the length, it was pruned back to the politics. Now, the politics was all there in the original but it was surrounding other things, such as the way people spent their Christmases. That was removed."

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