Director Baz Luhrmann is not scared of a challenge, but his patience was put to the test while filming Australia, starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman, in 2008.

The film was delayed due to many factors, including set-trained horses contracting a rare equine illness and the site experiencing its first significant rainfall in 150 years.

Luhrmann returned to the subject 15 years later to remake the film as a six-part limited series called Faraway Downs, which launched on Hulu on Sunday, November 26.

“I don’t know why I’m addicted to making things that seem impossible to make,” Luhrmann said in an interview with Variety.

“But of all my films, I have never faced the level of relentless obstacles I did on this one. I often tell people that if you are having trouble with vegetation and need things to grow, just have me come make a movie there. You’re guaranteed rain.”

Nicole Kidman plays Lady Sarah Ashley, a rich British expat who teams up with Hugh Jackman’s grizzled cattle drover to salvage her late husband’s faltering cattle farm, Faraway Downs.

Lady Ashley begins to love the wild lifestyle of the outback when she meets a precocious aboriginal child named Nullah (Brandon Walters), just as it becomes a target during World War II.

While the film was not a commercial success in the United States, Luhrmann has received critical acclaim for his previous films, The Great Gatsby and Elvis.