Latest in The Hobbit New Zealand

The New Zealand parliament has passed emergency legislation ensuring that the 2 back-to-back Hobbit films get made in the country. The legislation bypassed usual parliamentary committees, prompting New Zealand MPs to call it a “day of shame." One held up a redesigned national flag with the Warner Bros logo in one…

Producer/director Peter Jackson is celebrating. Warner Bros executives were locked in negotiations all day with New Zealand government leaders. Then Prime Minister John Key announced at a press conference tonight that The Hobbit back-to-back movies will be made in New Zealand. That’s a $500+ million project, and the…

New Zealanders are leaving nothing to chance when Warner Bros executives arrive early this week. Prime Minister John Key and other politicians  are trying to salvage The Hobbit situation so the shoot stays in New Zealand. But the studio is eyeing other locations after the production was temporarily blacklisted by…

Warner Bros and Peter Jackson next week will try to hash out whether the $500 million budget for back-to-back The Hobbit films will stay in New Zealand or move elsewhere. Meetings are planned that will involve Prime Minister John Key. Here’s a terrific dispatch from New Zealand Close Up: it’s long but is well worth it…

New Line has weighed in on The Hobbit, adding doubt that the Warner Bros-financed pictures will shoot in New Zealand even though actors guilds have lifted their boycott. I still think that Peter Jackson is so staked in New Zealand with his sound stages and visual effects operations that he won’t shoot elsewhere, but…

UPDATE: There’s still unease even though SAG and AFTRA rescinded the order to stop its actor members from working on The Hobbit because of a request from sister union New Zealand Actors Equity. The labor settlement doesn’t mean Peter Jackson will move the pictures back to the New Zealand locations that are home to…

Now add fire to the latest list of woes which have beset Peter Jackson’s pre-production on those back-to-back The Hobbit films. Flames yesterday engulfed his New Zealand workshop set which would have been used for the Tolkien movies. It took 50 firefighters three hours to quell the blaze in Wellington. All that’s left…

SAG & AFTRA Nix Non-Union ‘The Hobbit’ For Kiwi & Oz Actors Peter Jackson Slaps Back At Kiwi/Oz Unions New Line, Warner Bros. Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures are concerned by the recent allegations of unfair treatment of actors in New Zealand and instructions from the performers' guilds to their membership…

An angry Peter Jackson today is fighting back at a “Member Alert” that went out Friday afternoon from the Screen Actors Guild advising actors not to accept work on the non-union production of The Hobbit. It’s part of an international showbiz labor effort begun by New Zealand Actors’ Equity and its umbrella The Media…

BREAKING NEWS: Peter Jackson Slaps Back At Kiwi/Oz/Hollywood Unions UPDATE: A “Member Alert” went out yesterday afternoon from the Screen Actors Guild advising actors not to accept work on the non-union production of The Hobbit. (See below.) It’s part of an international showbiz labor effort begun by New Zealand…