Quote:
Originally Posted by Mister Underhill
It is crazy -- and more than a little scary -- the sheer scale that these modern "vertically integrated" conglomerates operate on. In this case, the union leadership played right into WB's hands. You don't whip up a labor action on a film until after they studio has already committed and started spending significant money, and after they've already started shooting. That's page one of the union playbook. If I were the conspiracy-minded type, I'd be tempted to wonder if this was only gross incompetence... or something even more insidious.
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Well, I'm not conspiracy-minded, so I doubt this was all a plot to ensure there'd be no union trouble once filming started, if that's what you mean. I think more likely they just jumped the gun, and, perhaps naively, didn't allow enough for the relative size of Warner Brothers vs the New Zealand economy.
Mind you, I did think much of the coverage of the original dispute was peculiarly biased in Jackson's and WB's favour– since it didn't in fact seem to me that the unions
were making outrageous demands.