My name is Ray from Wellington, New Zealand! I was at the Wellington Rally for The Hobbit today. I took along my camera and just finished piecing together the speeches. Here’s a link to the finished video, please do share it on the site! The picture is me..I brought along my shards of Narsil Sword and some face paint. It was enough to get me on the news here in NZ lol. Enjoy – it was an awesome event and I felt very honored and lucky to be part of it. Click to watch
Year: 2010
NZ Prime Minister John Key was on Newstalk ZB this morning and said the following: “I have spoken with the chief executive of Warner Brothers, who I know, but the real meeting is set to be this afternoon. They’re sending their senior people here. They want to assess things. They’re definitely not coming here to say no (to having the movie filmed in New Zealand) – if they were they probably wouldn’t send such a high-power team; they probably wouldn’t send a team at all. But there’s no question the action of the unions has destabilised their confidence in New Zealand – we’re a long, long way from a slam-dunk with the films being made in New Zealand.”
Thousands of New Zealanders have taken part in protests against possible plans to make the adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit outside of the country. Stephanie West investigates. Organisers of the protests said they coincided with the visit of Warner Brothers movie executives, who are due to meet New Zealand Prime Minister John Key on Tuesday to discuss moving the two-part adaptation from the country where the Lord of the Rings trilogy was shot. Rallies were held in Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, Hamilton, Queenstown and Matamata, where the Hobbiton sets have been built.
Ataahua sends this along: Kiwi cartoonist Tom Scott comments on the ‘Save the Hobbit’ rallies
Hollywood studio bosses go into talks tomorrow in Wellington with a loud and clear message that The Hobbit should be filmed in New Zealand.
TVNZ‘s Paul Holmes interviews President of the Combined Trade Unions Helen Kelly and managing director of South Pacific Picture John Barnett about the saga surrounding filming of The Hobbit. The Q&A gets extremely heated between the two, read on! More..