Quote:
Originally Posted by Mister Underhill
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.
|
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*."