During pre production, other filmmakers announced their own Ned Kelly projects including [[Tim Burstall]], Gary Shead and [[Dino de Laurentiis]].ref== Production ==
The making of the film was dogged by problems; even before production began, the Actors' Equity and some of Kelly's descendants protested strongly about the casting of Jagger in the lead role, and about the film's proposed shooting location in country [[New South Wales]], rather than in [[Victoria (state)|]], where the Kellys had lived.
Jagger's girlfriend of the time, [[Marianne Faithfull]], had come to Australia to play the lead female role (Ned's sister, Maggie), but the Jagger-Faithfull relationship was breaking up, and she took an overdose of sleeping tablets soon after arrival in [[Sydney]].ref She was hospitalised in a coma, but recovered and was sent home.ref She was replaced by a then-unknown Australian actress, [[Diane Craig]], who was then studying at .ref
Shooting began on 12 July 1969 and took ten weeks. During production, Jagger was slightly injured by a backfiring pistol, the cast and crew were dogged by illness, a number of costumes were destroyed by fire, and Jagger's co-star, [[Mark McManus]], narrowly escaped serious injury when a horse-drawn cart in which he was riding overturned during filming.
The actual body armour costume worn by Jagger is on display at the [[Queanbeyan, New South Wales|]] City Library, New South Wales, and the initials "MJ" are scratched on the inside.ref The head-piece was stolen.
Unlike most film versions, this is the first Ned Kelly film to feature the writing of "The Cameron Letter", one of Kelly's lesser known and rarely published letters that was written to Donald Cameron [[...|MLA]], a political representative in The [[Parliament of Victoria]] at the time. The letter was Kelly's first attempt to gain public sympathy. However, Kelly's well-known letter, [[The Jerilderie Letter]], is omitted from the film.ref
