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Unions Urging Actors Not To Work On Hobbit Movie
lbalbalba writes "Last we heard about The Hobbit, Guillermo Del Toro dropped out, Peter Jackson was unofficially directing and secretly auditioning actors, the movie had yet to be green-lit, and Ian McKellen was getting super-antsy about the whole thing and threatening not to play Gandalf. This shouldn't help the long-gestating movie happen any quicker: Actors guilds including SAG issued actual alerts yesterday against working on any of the Hobbit films, advising their members not to take parts in the non-union production, should they be offered them."
simply walk into an audition.
Bah. While there's no doubt that, at one point, unions served a vital purpose in protecting workers from abuse, nowadays, they're merely another expensive middle-man cost. Paid for by the protection racket^H^H^H^union dues and ultimately by the consumer.
Thank you, no.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Aren't these the same movies (producers?) that used 'hollywood accounting' to turn virtually no profit and thus dodge paying a huge chunk of money to Tolkien's trust or what ever they call themselves?
Gotta line those union leader pocketbooks. What were they thinking?
As long as the producer has a good script (kind of simple considering the high quality of the book's writing), with all the talent in the world, and modern technology available to produce one of these fantasies, everyone else is replacemable.
Hollywood has never been big about leaning from its past mistakes.
>>>"The Do Not Work Order tells actors, "If you are contacted to be engaged on The Hobbit please notify your union immediately."
It should be up to the actors whether or not they want to work on a non-union film. But I guess this is what happens when you make megaliths like corporations... there has to be counter-balancing force like the union, and the citizen gets squashed in the middle.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
until Robert Rodriguez is chosen as director so this film can be done properly as per Tolkein's vision.
There will always be others willing to do a job if Americans refuse to do it..
Unions are supposed to represent their members' interests, but the way unions behave these days I often wonder if it's not the members who are serving their unions. SAG prohibits is actors from working on non-union productions, and if it weren't for "right to work" statutes they would likely get away with it too. I do appreciate the need for pressure against employers who refuse to give fair treatment and compensation to their employees, but I often feel that unions are yet one more bureaucracy that employees have to deal with.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Anyone else initially read that as "Unicorns Urging Actors Not To Work On Hobbit Movie". I imagined Charlie's "friends" yelling "Don't make the Hobbit film! It won't end we-e-e-llll. Noooo, it won't. It'll end ba-a-a-a-d. You must kill them Charlie, before it's too late."
They have some really stupid restrictions. Take Sin City for example. Frank Miller was very unwilling to have any more of his work turned in to a movie, because he'd been badly screwed over by Hollywood. Robert Rodriguez figured he would win Miller over and in fact did. So they started work on the movie. Rodriguez felt that Miller did so much in directing the film that he was an equal, not an assistant director, but another director. However the Director's Guild doesn't allow that. All films have one and only one director. There can be assistants, but only one director. In the end, Rodriguez left the DGA so that Miller could have director credit. Because of that, he lost his position as director on another film.
The guilds in Hollywood are in every way as corrupt and stupid as the studios themselves.
By following the rules of the Film Actor's Guild(F.A.G.), the world can become a better place; that handles dangerous people with talk, and reasoning; that, is the fag way. One day you'll all look at the world us actors created and say, "wow, good going, fag. You really made the world a better place, didntcha, fag?"
I think that the union is trying to have US-style closed shops in New Zealand. Not a good plan.
"Closed Shops" are (from what I read) frowned upon (if not illegal) in New Zealand. It is up to the individual whether or not they join the union and pick up the collective contract. You can't force them, and you can't say, "You can only hire union members". This is different to the US and Canada which still allow "union shops" to exist.
Thankfully, Peter Jackson covers this in his statement:
"He always honoured actors' union conditions if they were union members"
You want to have a full union membership in the cast? Approach them and ask them to join.
One of the main unions involved in this (the MEAA) can't even legally operate in NZ. The actors and film companies can't sign with them as the union doesn't actually exist in NZ. Its just an Australian company trying to slice a peice of the NZ film market.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/4169335/Jackson-fights-to-save-Hobbit
We already have a reasonably good Hobbit movie. Sure, it's animated, but it will do.
So the film hasn't even been green-lit and they're already complaining about terms. I won't begrudge a man for trying to get a little extra on his pay check, but the union proposing a joint venture is just ridiculous. The worst part is that they can keep squeezing until the studio either caves in or sets up shop elsewhere, and they'll probably claim either of them as a victory, even if it means that a truck load of dwarves won't be getting any gold.
I say they should fricking CG a rigged model of him in there as Gandalf if he gives them trouble. It's the easiest way to make him younger anyways-- and he's not the only one that needs to be younger. Just pull an Avatar.
SAG does not want non-union actors to work on the film. New Zealand's local actors are not unionized. Despite the first Lord of the Rings trilogy being filmed in New Zealand (maybe because Peter Jackson is from New Zealand), the SAG is now afraid that film makers will start making films in New Zealand without union support. Did they object during the first 3 films?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Unions are international now they don't care about the workers they just want to maximize their own bottom line. I know of 2 companies that moved jobs out of the US to Mexico and Thailand to Union owned and run factories. The Unions make more money, the company pays less for labor and the US workers are screwed. The whole time this was happening the Union was telling the US workers to stay strong and stick together. In the end they did and the Union told them sorry we did the best we could for you but that big bad company just moved your jobs over seas.
If you are a Union member and you belong to one of the big ones you better beware. They don't care about you. Just the dues you pay them...pawn.
One union to rule them all!
In some cases, the unions simply have enough force. Part of their "collective bargaining" is to bargain that nobody gets to hire non-union employees. So even though there may be no real legal prevention, there is effective prevention. Join or you get no work in that field. In other places, there is legal protection. In non "right to work" states if a given field is unionized, membership is non-optional. You work in that field, you MUST join the union by law. You get situations like where the UAW is forcing independent daycare providers to pay dues. See the UAW represents daycare workers in that state, and membership is non-optional. So they are forcing it even on people who are working for themselves, and thus a situation where a union has no relevance. See: http://current.com/news/92664102_day-care-workers-are-now-uaw-workers.htm.
All of this is just the legal reasons who joining unions is often non-optional. There are also less savory cases of intimidation and violence.
They also work hard to keep it that way. For example right now there's a measure coming up on the ballot here to force all union votes to be secret ballot. Just like actual election votes, and most other votes, the identity of people voting would be protected, you wouldn't know who voted what way. The unions are fighting it extremely hard. Now why would they do that? What reason is there to not want a secret ballot? That system is well established.
The reason, of course, is pressure. If you know how people voted, you can pressure them to vote the way you want. That's the whole reason we use secret ballots in political elections is so that can't happen. However the unions are concerned if it happened, people could vote to disband the union and they'd not be able to pressure them out of it.
If it was just as simple as "Don't join if you don't wanna," it wouldn't be nearly such a big deal. However it isn't.
Some states allow for that kind of thing. "Right to work states," have less employee protections in general (you are usually at will) but also less union protection. You can work a job that has a union, but not be a member and all that. However a number of states, in particular those with big unions with lots of power, are not that way. You are required to join the union that represents you, like it or no, if you work in a given field.
In some cases it is technically legal not to be a member but impossible as a practicality because the union forces places not to hire non-union workers.
This is part of the reason why you see so much ill will towards unions from some in the US. Many of them, in particular the larger ones, have a "Our way or the highway," situation. If you work in an industry they control, you have to be a member and play by their rules. That leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many.
Funny how they want to set a minimum wage but not a maximum.
Dude, have you seen Bad Taste or Dead Alive? Both are Peter Jackson flicks and they are damn funny and good.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Big Labor, Big Corporations, Big Government. Same story, screw everyone for their percentage.
Economic Terrorists...
"You works for the Hobbit, youse gonna feel da pain..."
I'm sorry, but Bad Taste was a monumental waste of time to watch. However, I would agree that Dead Alice is ridiculously hilarious. It's one of those films that I never get tired of watching. As far as I know, the only decent films Peter Jackson has ever done were Dead Alive and The Frighteners.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Bad Taste was bad, but its so bad its good. Its sort of like watching "Plan 9 from Outer Space". It has an appeal to Troma lovers as well. My take on the movie was that Peter Jackson wanted to make something like a Troma movie to appeal to a particular sense of humor.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
I love Bad taste, and also Braindead (US name dead alive). Bad taste is so bad, that just when you walk over to turn it off, something happens that makes you simultaniously laugh and gross out.
AFAIC, Peter Jackson hasn't made a bad movie yet, including King Kong. His interpretation of TLOTR was all in all good, with some caveats. But, and it's a big but, he should be given 50 lashes for omitting the scouring of the shire. (that and letting Faramir succumb however short term, to the ring)
It'll be interesting to see if/when/how the hobbit gets made.
jaz
Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans. No-one sees motorcycles
The unions aren't in any way attempting to secure equal pay for equal work. It's just a ploy to raise some salaries without real reason. If it weren't they'd be willing to "equalize" pay by lowering that of those they seem to feel are overpaid.
You've taken the nice fluffy useful end of socialism and turned it into something fascist.
Unions are very rarely monopolies elsewhere.
Uhhh... You haven't *really* seen anything he did prior to LOTR:TFOTR, have you?
If you think Meet The Feebles, Bad Taste or Braindead weren't bad movies... well, there's no accounting for taste, I suppose. Meet The Feebles, IMNSHO, stands as one of the single worst movies ever filmed and then knowingly distributed - anyone with any sense of shame or pride would never have finished filming it, much less let other people watch it. As for Bad Taste, it was easily as bad, and last I checked, bad movie = bad movie, regardless of whether it contains scenes so stupid as to make you laugh simply so you don't weep for the shame and embarrassment of the time and brain cells you're losing seeing it, and the poor degraded schmucks making it.
To be honest, I never really understood how anyone could have seen his early movies and thought it would be a good idea to give him the money to do LOTR.
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
SAG is not a union, it's a guild, which is quite different. A guild is set up to monopolize the supply of labor and services. They don't perform collective bargaining insomuch as they create a monopoly that both sides must go through to get anything done. The lawyers have the Bar and doctors have their boards, and you need a license to cut hair, etc. These are all guild-like entities. Guilds grew up under mercantilism in Europe, not capitalism. The ones we have in the US and other places outside of Europe were generally imported from there.
I live near Philly. We've seen, first hand, unions try to impose insane work rules. It's almost as if they were hell bent on bring down our region.
It's not just that they are more expensive, but their work rules and protection of ineffective workers hurt businesses.
Killing the goose that lays the golden eggs is just not a concern to them.
At least that perception I have (and others) is the reason why we have an anti-Union attitude. Seeing constant strikes for relatively sane reforms in France doesn't lend support to the perception either.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I think the anti union feel comes from unions acting like asses in many cases. For example in Michigan if you are in child day care you must, by law, be part of the union. Actually it's more cryptic than that. If you have a day care You are a government employee and get union dues deducted. No choice on the matter even if you're a sole proprietor running your own small day care.
Or even been to a tradeshow? Want to plug something into an electrical outlet, like you have done countless times in your life? Sorry, wait for a union electrician to show up because it's part of their union contract (Not an insurance matter most of the time).
Or maybe a Production engineer at a plant, with an assembly line down to something stupid like a tripped breaker, valve stuck, one of the normal reasons for a lockup. You could get the line going within a heartbeat but instead waste lots of manhours waiting for the one certified union worker to push the button for you.
It's because of these stupid rules, that while the intention may have started as good, hurts the company as a whole and gives unions a bad rep. Now I do have a history in the trades and I thing the formal journeyman / masters process is a very good thing. The bureaucracy is an entirely other thing.
its like as if we dont exist. they are forgetting that WE make a movie, or break it. not themselves. we can even make crap movies hit big in box office, or great movies do shit.
Read radical news here
Hobbits are gay. This fact is irrefutable. (Score:-1, Troll)
Well he's got a point, I mean they only lasted one generation!
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
In New Zealand, unions are obviously non-Hobbit-forming.
Cos' f*&k knows you wouldn't wanna be in an ultra-famous, multi-award winning, googolplex-dollar selling project that's going to stick with you as the best thing you ever did in your life. It's not like that's good, or anything.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
Here is a better reason not to work on these movies...They will suck. Don't waste more of the worlds time with this horrible story. I'd rather have pins constantly poked in to my balls than watch another orks vs elves tale.
The topic, the directors, the producers and the country are bloody boring. The unions make it more so. Unions are boring. Though not nearly as boring as idiots who are anti-union. Unions are created by people who screw workers. That's a given. Makes unions boring, but necessary. Support boring unions.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2013.808365
The old union breaking tactics that made them stronger and more popular are long gone. I suspect much better methods have been employed for generations which is why in the USA we are 100 years backwards on them. They are unpopular conceptually to a whole lot of people and some of the existing ones have been made ineffective or it seems that they've decided to play along with management almost as if some management made their way into leadership. Think tanks likely are the the reason for a lot of the negativity and bad attitude by the general population here. There are a few working good unions... but there are not that many anyhow; seems they either are effective and popular in an industry OR they are playing the middle so leadership can keep their jobs without doing anything. Its not like the bargaining power exists today...
Just about everyone I know works for non-union employers. None of us have poor or dangerous working conditions. My employer (a university) has never been unionized in its 125 year history and has an excellent record for good work quality. My friend who works for Calence loves it, standard office job, and it is non union. I could go on and on but the fact of the matter is most employers here are non-union (right to work state) and they pay reasonable wages and offer a good work environment. Why? Because if they don't employees will go elsewhere, in particular good ones. The can't force you to stay. Also some things, like safety, are handled by the government. OSHA mandates safety provisions, no bargaining needed.
It sounds to me like you've drank a bit too deeply from the union kool aid. Do some research and you'll find that a great many employers aren't union, including some who are listed as the very best to work for.
Peter Jackson isn't very popular (last I heard) with the studios. King Kong was a major hassle for the studios and showed Peter Jackson to be what he really was... an untalented overpaid bum who made his name for himself on the back of a legendary series of story books.
Here's hoping that this next major guffaw derails his career for good.
To be honest, I never really understood how anyone could have seen his early movies and thought it would be a good idea to give him the money to do LOTR.
What about Heavenly creatures? It's certainly a much more adult (as in grown up, not as in porn) work than the likes of Bad Taste, and a fantasy movie in my opinion, although based on a true story. Having said that though, I'm not convinced that he was the optimal choice for the LOTR movies - nor am I convinced that they had to be filmed at all. Filming the Hobbit makes more sense to me.
...has this guild killed Lich King on heroic yet?
There are 29.6 million small businesses in the United States. 70% of all jobs created in the past 10 years were due to small business. More than half of the non-farming US GDP is from small businesses. And this percentage can easily change. Think of all of the Japanese mega-corporations and all of the office workers working for huge faceless corporations. 90% of Japanese are, in fact, employed by small businesses.
The evil super-rich who own the means of production and all the wealth on the planet represent not even a fraction of all of the businesses and not much of the jobs that are out there. People only remember the truck driver that ran them off the road, never the tens of thousands of truck drivers that changed lanes for you.
If unions are to be organized, let them be organized and protected like they are in Japan -- on a per-company, per organization basis. Under no circumstances should there be an "auto workers union", or a "teachers union", or an "actors union". Perhaps there could be a "Ford union", a "Southern Ohio District Teachers Union", or a "Paramount Pictures Actors Union". And different unions could talk to each other to compare their conditions.
But as it stands, unions are too large to accurately represent anyone, they are literally bursting at the seams with corruption, they have zero checks and balances, you are forced to join the union for most union jobs (unless you your administration to be pressured by the union to fire you or you like working 2 hours per week), they destroy companies or at the very least make them extremely uncompetitive from their often ridiculous demands, and most of their assets are private and completely unscrutinizable (unless you like be demonized by unions).
As far as I know, the only decent films Peter Jackson has ever done were Dead Alive and The Frighteners.
You missed off Meet the Feebles (imo). That's got to be one of the most fucked up films I've ever seen and certainly the only one in which a walrus and a rat driving a Fifties mobster car burst out of the anus of a giant whale (or something). There was also a film called Beautiful Creatures starring a young Kate Winslet which wasn't too bad.
That's what Peter Jackson used to be like. Then he started doing stuff like the Lord of the Rings movies. They're not rubbish, but they're nowhere near as interesting as his early work.
But my main issue with The Hobbit is that Del Torro gave up doing At The Mountains of Madness to do it, which is the first chance we've ever had to see a really big budget Lovecraft adaptation. Hopefully now that Del Torro is no longer involved in The Hobbit, he'll go back to that.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
The rule was there to protect director, but when a director *ASK* to have another guy put as co-director the guild refuse ? Instead of, you know, accepting exceptionally due to the circumstance ? You know how we call that back in germany ? Having a stick so far up their ass that they can't think straight. A rule to protect director should be negotiable when the director want to break it and has GOOD REASON to do it.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Heavenly Creatures was good ( I mistakenly remembered it as "Beautiful Creatures" elsewhere). It has some big similarities to another film called "Fun" which came out a year before. The latter stars a very young Alicia Witt who demonstrates that before TV got hold of her and told her they only wanted her to stand around looking pretty, she was an absolutely great actress.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
There was a time when picketing got you shot, beat up or your home torched.
By the police.
Your point?
PS I wonder if this post will get "Insightful" like the parent one...
You missed off Meet the Feebles (imo). That's got to be one of the most fucked up films I've ever seen and certainly the only one in which a walrus and a rat driving a Fifties mobster car burst out of the anus of a giant whale (or something). There was also a film called Beautiful Creatures starring a young Kate Winslet which wasn't too bad.
It was Beautiful Creatures' mix of really heavy personal/emotional issues combined with an imaginary land, that convinced me that Peter Jackson was the right person to do LotR. And in many ways he was. The attention to detail was staggering, and there are some really powerful scenes in there. But the flow of the movies wasn't right, too much attention to big action scenes, and too many unnecessary changes to the story. But still, many really good, really powerful scenes. Some bits sucked, some bits were awesome.
It was Beautiful Creatures'
It's called "Heavenly Creatures", of course.
Unions are needed more than ever. A case in point the recent collusion of Apple, Intel and others from poaching each others workers.
Large companies are screwing people over, they have remove pension plans and they keep reducing benefits etc. If they cannot afford to be in business, get the fuck out.
Not everyone has time to mull over employee contracts or work policies, a Union often fights or defends absurd changes that these companies impose.
People have to get their head out of their asses, unions in general work for your benefit.
Explain to me how someone continually gets wage increases, in these economic times. Contract bargaining that is.
FU to anyone who'd disagree, your probably a Teabagger or Neocon shithead
I thought it was FAG.
when they fought for the rights of the poor guy to bring home enough to feed his family
unions aren't noble anymore, when they fight for the perks of the upper middle class fat guy
unions have lost their nobility. they are more parasitical than heroic nowadays
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yup. It made me love him even more.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
was a monumental waste of time to watch.
There's a plaque somewhere then?
of public sector unions
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This thing is taking so long, they should just scratch the whole movie and make a Duke Nuke 'em movie instead.
I don't understand. New Zealand is not the SAG's jurisdiction. This should be of no concern to them.
Indeed, Heavenly Creatures wasn't absoulutely rotten. That stands though as probably the only pre-LOTR movie of his with any redeeming qualities (unless you're also a fan of bad horror movies, in which case you might like The Frighteners - I didn't).
I'm also with you on the last: not only was he not likely the most optimal choice as director (though to be honest, better Jackson than Sam Raimi, based on Raimi's treatment of The Legend of the Seeker), nor, as you say, did they necessarily need to be filmed in the first place. They could have been worse, but in the aftermath, maybe I'm just burned out on them or something, but... Not every good book needs to be a movie, and vice-versa.
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
I say tell the whiny bitch Aussies to go fuck themselves. They are just horrendously jealous that they do not have a film industry or a director capable of this sort of film. Look at their last attempt at a "blockbuster" called "Australia". It took a Kiwi to bring the tales of Tolkien to the big screen and they made billions. What are Australia's recent contributions to the industry? Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe. Ooops, Crowe was born in New Zealand and Kidman was born in the US.
It seems odd to claim that somebody who wants to essentially *share* the credit is acting in an egotistical manner. Some people have different values, and perhaps it was a point of principles for him to have Miller have fame for his own work. Just like the concept of "activist judges" that's come up a few times when a judge makes an unpopular decision, sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong, and sometimes it's the right thing for the wrong reason (or vice-versa).