David: “I’m counting the recovery.”

Judging by the trailer, the movie feels like an old school rom-com meets screwball comedy set in an exotic location, full of snappy barbs. Think Mamma Mia! or Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Ticket to Paradise is directed by Ol Parker, best known as the writer of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movies and director of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

It is made by a British production company with a strong track record for romantic comedies. Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner’s Working Title Films has made such hits as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually, Notting Hill and the Bridget Jones movies.

The company’s previous movies in Australia have included the Heath Ledger version of Ned Kelly, the Tim Winton adaptation That Eye, The Sky and the little-seen horror thriller Gone.

Ticket to Paradise, which opens in cinemas on September 15, was made for Hollywood studio Universal with the producers including Sarah Harvey (In Bruges), Deb Balderstone (Palm Beach), Roberts and Clooney.

It is part of a pipeline of film and television projects the Universal group has shot in Australia, including the TV series Young Rock, Joe vs. Carole and Irreverent.

Other Hollywood movies to find Australia a safe shooting location during the pandemic include Ron Howard’s Thai cave rescue drama Thirteen Lives, which shot in Queensland, and Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder, which shot in Sydney.

While low COVID numbers attracted Ticket to Paradise to the Sunshine State, the production had to finish early because of the severity of the Omicron outbreak in January.

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It was shot with $6.4 million in funding from the federal government and incentives from Screen Queensland’s Production Attraction Strategy, pumping $47 million into the economy and employing 270 cast and crew.

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Email the writer at gmaddox@smh.com.au and follow him on Twitter at @gmaddox.