Unlike Chopper, a biography of real-life career criminal Mark 'Chopper' Read, Animal Kingdom's tale of 17-year-old Josh Cody (James Frecheville) and his survival in a criminal family is fictional. But according to Michod, who honed his script over a decade, it's inspired by truth, notably the work of Tom Noble. A former chief police reporter for Melbourne newspaper The Age, Noble went on to write the best-selling true crime books Untold Violence, Walsh Street and Neddy, all depicting the city's crime scene in the 1980s.

'We were drawing from his observations of that period which was, in effect, the decline of these hardened gangs of armed robbers, and equally hardened core of the armed robbery squad in the Melbourne police,' says Michod. If Animal Kingdom initially seems like a classic cops and robbers tale, pitting its criminal clan - the Codys - against the guile of the local police force (led by Guy Pearce), this is no Antipodean Heat. More akin to another Australian crime classic The Boys, the violence is spare and the menace understated and insidious.

'I always wanted to make a film where it felt that something bad was lurking just around the corner,' says Michod. 'I wanted to find a main house [for the Codys] that felt a little like a dark cave, with long hallways, at the end of which might be a door slightly ajar, and you're not entirely sure what's in the room behind it. I always knew I wanted to make a crime film that felt dangerous, if not exactly frightening.'

Much of this comes through the family's two main players - matriarch Janine 'Grandma Smurf' Cody (Weaver) and her eldest son, Andrew (Ben Mendelsohn), known to everyone as 'Pope'. While Grandma Smurf recalls Shelley Winters' 'Ma' Kate Barker in Roger Corman's Bloody Mama for her borderline incestuous love for Pope and his two brothers, Darren and Craig, Pope himself is barely able to keep a lid on his psychotic tendencies, which lead the family into increasing danger.

'He's deeply unstable,' says Michod. 'Ben and I talked about this a lot - the truly terrifying people don't need to advertise how scary they are. They don't need tattoos and tough hair cuts and they don't need to brandish weapons. In fact, they behave like drunk people - who try everything they can to pretend they're not drunk. Here's a guy who is seriously mentally unstable, who is actually trying very hard to pretend he's not.'

Much like the way Chopper propelled star Eric Bana to Hollywood, the actors from Animal Kingdom have started getting offers to work in US films. 'It's been exciting for me to watch the ways in which this film has opened up opportunities for a number of people,' says Michod, who has seen Weaver capitalise on her Oscar nod by landing a role in the Emily Blunt-starring comedy Five-Year Engagement. Mendelsohn has just finished shooting a kidnap thriller, Trespass, with Nicole Kidman and Nicolas Cage.

As for Michod, he hasn't been left behind. 'I've probably spent three or four months in America this year, doing the 'million meetings a day' thing,' he says. 'I love it there. I love the energy of that place. It's absolutely necessary to know which people out there share your sensibilities. You have to put in the time and energy into meeting people, and meeting them more than once, opening lines of dialogue and getting a clear sense of how that crazy place works.'

Born in Sydney and schooled at a graduate film programme at the University of Melbourne, in some ways Michod is looking to export his own tastes to Hollywood. Already, he is part of a filmmaking collective called Blue-Tongue Films that has made in-roads into the US film world. Michod first came into contact with them when he was editing Australian film magazine Inside Film, which was housed in the same building in Sydney. 'Our acquaintance came from arguing over car spaces in the back of the building,' he says.

A collection of actors (including Joel Edgerton, who has a small role in Animal Kingdom), writers, directors and stuntmen, it's a caring-sharing agglomeration of industry insiders willing to help each other out. Michod has already co-scripted Hesher with fellow Blue-Tongue member Spencer Susser, who directed this story of a misanthropic metal fan (played by Inception star Joseph Gordon-Levitt) which bowed in at Sundance alongside Animal Kingdom.

Still, it's hard to imagine after the success of Animal Kingdom that Michod will be spending any more time writing scripts for others. 'For me, in part, it's been about working out not just what it is I want to do next, but how to do it, and where to do it, and on what scale to do it.'

He admits there's an 'anxiety' now regarding his next step. 'That second movie choice feels far more loaded than I ever imagined it would. The risk of misstep feels much greater,' he says. Judging by the craft of Animal Kingdom, he need not worry.

Animal Kingdom opens on Thursday