New Zealand rallies to keep Hobbit films

Organisers of the protests said they coincided with the visit of Warner Brothers movie executives, who are due to meet New Zealand Prime Minister John Key on Tuesday to discuss moving the two-part adaptation from the country where the Lord of the Rings trilogy was shot.

Rallies were held in Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, Hamilton, Queenstown and Matamata, where the Hobbiton sets have been built.

Union row
The protests follow a row over wages with acting unions who threatened to boycott the films. Warner Bros said the action had caused “substantial damage” even though the threat has now been lifted.

“They’ve (the union) done some real damage to the way that they view New Zealand and on that basis, I can’t guarantee that the movies will be made as a result of the negotiations we have with them,” Prime Minister Key said on New Zealand television.

Sir Richard Taylor, the managing director of Weta Workshop – the special effects and prop company who produced sets, costumes, weapons and creatures or the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy – said the rallies aimed to send a message that New Zealand was the “greatest place in the world” to make movies including the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy prequel to Lord of the Rings.

“I can’t guarantee that the movies will be made as a result of the negotiations we have with (the unions)”
Prime Minister John Key

Taylor read out a letter from Director Peter Jackson in which he described the New Zealand film industry as “a large, noisy, growing family” to which he owed a “debt of gratitude”.

‘Incredibly heartening’
Jackson thanked people for their support saying it had been “incredibly heartening” to read their messages.

“New Zealand is where the ‘Hobbit’ films should be made, their creative DNA is here, this is where Middle Earth was born, and this is where it should stay,” Taylor told the rally as he read out a letter from Jackson.

Last week, Jackson said studio representatives would be in New Zealand “to make arrangements to move the production offshore”.