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The Hobbit To Be Filmed In New Zealand After All

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the showed-them-the-money dept.

An anonymous reader writes "John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand, has confirmed this afternoon that The Hobbit will be filmed in NZ, after weeks of uncertainty. From the article: 'The future of the $670m production hung in the balance after an actors union issued a no-work order on the films last month. Talks were held overnight with studio executives from Warner Brothers to resolve concerns about industrial laws in New Zealand.'"

4 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Best government money can buy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Talks were held overnight with studio executives from Warner Brothers to resolve concerns about industrial laws

    Uh-huh.

  2. New Zealand pays Warner Bros by AtomicJake · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You could say that New Zealand bribes Warner to get the Hobbits. From TFA: "Mr Key also announced The Hobbit will get a $20million ($15m US) tax rebate - US$7.5m per film" and "The Government will also offset U$10m of Warner Brothers' marketing costs."

    1. Re:New Zealand pays Warner Bros by AnonymousClown · · Score: 3, Interesting
      It's not just tourism. The production company comes in for months and buys materials to build sets, hires local contractors, get food, lodging, hires extras, etc...

      I don't know if the $30 million subsidy is worth it, though. I would like to see how it works out in the end.

      --
      RIP America

      July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001

  3. Re:Spoken like a true white collar worker by Vaphell · · Score: 3, Interesting

    i have a great example from my beautiful country - coal mining in Poland.
    Situation is simply ridiculous. I don't know if the Polish coal mines have been profitable for more than 2 years in the last 2 decades. They are not a private business, they cost the budget a metric fuckton of cash in taxes they can't and don't pay, yet the miners are the holy cows - they get 13th and 14th salaries, have shitload of other bonuses and can retire much much earlier than the ordinary taxpayer. And there is way too many of them. IIRC in the last 20 years coal mining sucked in something between 10 and 20 gigadollars of taxpayer's money, which is a respectable score for a rather poor by european standards sub-40million country. I've found some data from 2003 - in the Coal Company which manages several mines there were 28(!) unions.
    When they don't like the ideas discussed in the parliament, they gather in Warsaw, demolish the streets, burn tires, throw stones and bricks and in the end they get any shit they want from the spineless politicians. Nobody can touch miners and their unions.
    At least in this case worker unions are a fucking parasite and should be blasted into oblivion.