A monument to Wills was erected at Moyston in 1998. In 1988, the Melbourne Cricket Club erected bronze doors, designed by Robert Ingpen, outside the club's entrance, depicting Wills holding a football. A statue of Wills umpiring an 1858 football match was erected outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 2002.
Wills is the subject of a series of paintings by Archibald Prize nominee Martin Tighe.
Literature
Martin Flanagan's 1998 historical novel The Call is a semi-fictional account of Wills' life. In it, Wills is cast as a tragic sporting genius,[1] and the dingo is used to symbolise his identity as an "ambiguous creature" caught between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia.[2] In The Paddock That Grew, released that same year, Keith Dunstan imagines Wills as a ghost touring modern Melbourne.
Plans for a feature film about Wills were made in 1989 but later abandoned.
A docudrama on Wills' life, shot in 2008, had its premier at the Arts Centre Melbourne in 2014, and was subsequently shown on Australian television.[5] Portions of the docudrama also form part of an exhibit on Wills' life at the International Cricket Hall of Fame. Wills is portrayed by Nathan Phillips.[6]
^Flanagan, Martin (6 November 1998). "The Summer Game". The Sports Factor (Interview). Interviewed by Amanda Smith. ABC Radio National. Archived from the original on 22 July 2012. Retrieved 29 August 2013.