Hobbit Movie dying?
 

The whole issue over actors' pay seems to have reached a boiling point.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11417340

At the moment, these are described as 'threats' of a halt. Do we think it will actually end for good?

And I was so looking forwards to seeing McCoy as a spoon-playing wizard!

Interesting article! I've heard stories about this -- how the success of LotR has altered the New Zealand film industry. Probably the only reason that the LotR even exists is because they were able to do it on the (relative) cheap in New Zealand. But all that money flowing for all those years created bigger and bigger expectations from local labor and talent. They want more, and so consequently one of the principal attractions of filming in New Zealand -- low cost -- is going away.

I'm a union guy, but reality is reality. The L.A. economy has taken significant hits over the past fifteen or twenty years because of "runaway production". It's cheaper to go to Canada, or eastern Europe, or even just out of state to get attractive tax rebates and non-union crews. Films can go to the Czech Republic and get a crew to work six days a week for pennies on the dollar -- and they do.

By the way, this won't affect the main cast, who are probably all working under SAG contracts anyway. It's more to do with day players, background actors, and stuntmen.

This is just gamesmanship. I don't think it will affect whether The Hobbit gets made one way or the other. It may affect where it gets made.

Last I heard, MGM was very close to some kind of deal that will resolve their financial trouble. In fact I recall reading something only a week or two ago about how Bond is ready to move forward. Things seem to be happening. I wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of formal announcement about The Hobbit in the near future.

EDIT: Whoops -- a little googling reveals that SAG has alerted members not to accept work on the picture. So maybe more serious than I thought. Still, gamesmanship. No doubt some deal will be struck after both sides stop posturing.

Update: The L.A. Times is reporting that, according to the ubiquitous "people familiar with the situation", The Hobbit is close to going forward and may get a green light within the next few days. The same people say that this little dust-up with the unions is "close to being resolved".

Has there ever been a project that has had more rumored starts? Reminds me of a recent headline in The Onion: "Script Has Been Floating Around Hollywood for 75 Years".

I can see Mr. Smith now, in his role as Elrond, saying in a nasally whine: "The Hobbit is...dying!"

But I don't even think it's the New Zealand talent that's creating the dispute. It's an actor's union partly-based in Australia that's trying to get involved into the films. I don't want to get into the political merits and drawbacks of unions, but from the looks of it this International Federation of Actors is essentially saying, "hey non-union New Zealanders, boycott The Hobbit so they have to negotiate with us." The union is doing it's job in fighting for their members, but in the end, it is an actor's union trying to bully their way into the films (thus kicking out any of the New Zealand talent that would want to be in), and this provoked Jackson to respond with "if you want to play that way, we'll take the films elsewhere *shrug*."

Keeping filming of The Hobbit in New Zealand is apparently so important the Prime Minister there has gotten involved.

All commentary I've seen on this dispute basically takes the line "Evil Meanie Unions Are Evil And Spoiling Everything". However, I think it might be useful to check out what the other side actually said:

Full text here.

Now, I don't know the rights and wrongs of this business, or whether that really is how things currently work in NZ, but it does seem to cast a somewhat different light on the issue.

I don't think it will halt, but I definitely think it will be delayed. From what I'm hearing, The Hobbit won't be out any time soon. Perhaps it will only come out after 2012. I sure hope that's not the case, though.

I still haven't seen Peter Jacksons' LOTR films, so it's not particularly interesting to me. Besides, we still have the old Rankin Bass Hobbit film, which I do like. That movie will be better than whatever they put out now.

They'll probably turn Bard and a few of the dwarves into female characters. Maybe Shelob will be there and escape Mirkwood forest after Bilbo fights off the spiders. I wonder if they'll find a way to add in Aragorn as a small child that wants to help out his good friend Thorin when he meets them in Rivendell. Taking creative liberties wasn't a problem for the LOTR films...