The Hobbit To Be Filmed In New Zealand After All 123
An anonymous reader writes "John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand, has confirmed this afternoon that The Hobbit will be filmed in NZ, after weeks of uncertainty. From the article: 'The future of the $670m production hung in the balance after an actors union issued a no-work order on the films last month. Talks were held overnight with studio executives from Warner Brothers to resolve concerns about industrial laws in New Zealand.'"
unions exist for unions (Score:3, Insightful)
"Industrial laws"? Nice euphemism. Yet another example of how unions exist to keep unions existing.
Re:New Zealand pays Warner Bros (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:unions exist for unions (Score:3, Insightful)
Or maybe they are the only non-governmental international bodies that have any ability to pressure production studios to stop using 'Hollywood Accounting' to screw people over while reaping in millions of pure proffit.
-Rick
Re:Spoken like a true white collar worker (Score:5, Insightful)
While some of what you say is true, as one who works in a forced union environment, I can tell you that currently the main goal of unions is not protection of the worker, but the protection of the lazy and incompetent so they, the unions, can continue to siphon money from the workers.
The unions will use any excuse for why someone who literally does nothing all day should not lose their job. It's job protection, pure and simple, and has nothing to do with making the workplace safer. It's to protect their own interests which is money from nothing so they can party. Period.
Re:unions exist for unions (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Films? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, the talk has been all about making two films since the project was declared, and I for one welcome it.
I had several complaints about LoTR (the most significant being "The Two Towers" turning into "The Battle of Helms Deep: A Love Story") and a lot of them were simply the impossibility of fitting so much material into "movie time". If Jackson had had the green light for 4 LoTR films, or 5, or 6, we might have seen Bombadil, we might have seen Sharkey, a lot of background might have been filled in, etc.
Also, you can skip decent sized swaths of LoTR after you say "and then they walked for a month", which can take whole chapters in LoTR where each individual leaf on every tree is exhaustively examined and described. :) The Hobbit is a shorter book than any of the three LoTR volumes, but it's a faster-paced book with lots more action. It's more of a children's book than LoTR, so a lot happens in fairly short amounts of time. There's easily two movies' worth of material there, and I'd rather have Jackson take his time and tell a broader and more comprehensive story than try to cram "There and Back Again" into 90 minutes.
Plus, of course, there's more money in two films.
Re:Spoken like a true white collar worker (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:New Zealand pays Warner Bros (Score:1, Insightful)
It's not just tourism. The production company comes in for months and buys materials to build sets, hires local contractors, get food, lodging, hires extras, etc...
I don't know if the $30 million subsidy is worth it, though. I would like to see how it works out in the end.
Well, the budget for the film is US$670M. Even if only a quarter of that (~$140M) is spent in NZ, they're still up a net of $110M. There's also usually a "multiplier" effect considered, since the people who get the money directly from the production then go onto to buy other things that they may have otherwise not have gotten (since /they/ now have extra revenue).
Re:unions exist for unions (Score:3, Insightful)
Unions brought you the 40-hour work week, the weekend, workplace safety laws, and non-exploitative wages. People fought and died in the streets against huge moneyed interests for all that and other little things, like keeping your 6 year old kid from working six 16-hour days a week down a methane-poisoned coal mine.
What part of that don't you like?
Are unions perfect? No, they are imperfect (and at times stupid) human institutions. But go read about what life was like in the workplace before them (workplace realities in 19th century England and America would astound you). See what Pullman and Carnagie and Ford and GM and so many others were doing to their workforce before unions. Bet you wouldn't choose to go back there yourself...
Re:unions exist for unions (Score:1, Insightful)
Unions brought you the 40-hour work week, the weekend, workplace safety laws, and non-exploitative wages. People fought and died in the streets against huge moneyed interests for all that and other little things, like keeping your 6 year old kid from working six 16-hour days a week down a methane-poisoned coal mine.
What part of that don't you like?
Are unions perfect? No, they are imperfect (and at times stupid) human institutions. But go read about what life was like in the workplace before them (workplace realities in 19th century England and America would astound you). See what Pullman and Carnagie and Ford and GM and so many others were doing to their workforce before unions. Bet you wouldn't choose to go back there yourself...
My grandfather taught me a lesson similar to what you write above. He was a 40+ year union member in an industry where things may blow up if done wrong. However he also taught me that the unions slowly evolved into parasites over time. That they became more of a mob protection racket than a force for workers. Another analogy he used was that they were an army who won the war, but never demobilized and went home - rather they picked and staged fights to give the impression that they were still relevant and needed. That the good things that men fought and died for are *not* in union contracts, they are in the *law*. As laws they (workers compensation, child labor, etc) are not going to be rolled back. The good unions won that war, the unions we often see today are something entirely different.
Oh really? Then how come they haven't done it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hollywood is extremely, EXTREMELY heavily unionized. For such a specialty kind of setup it is rare to see that many unions. Everyone is in a union, the actors, directors, writes, casting agents, etc, etc. Been that way for a LONG time too, it isn't like they unionized a couple of years ago. The Screen Actors Guild started in 1933. Also many of the unions have larger union connections. The SAG is part of the AFL-CIO, as an example.
So, that being the case, why the fuck is Hollywood Accounting still around if the unions can force change? You telling me that all those unions working together somehow just haven't been powerful enough? The unions that control essentially everyone on the production of a movie, including the big names and important talent?
Ya right.
Rather you find that they do as unions are wont to do today in that they work to better and perpetuate themselves within the system. They are fine with Hollywood Accounting fucking all kinds of people, including the government, they just figure out ways to work the system. Their members get paid, they can tell people how to work within the game, but they do nothing at all to change it.
Sorry man, but if ever there was an example of unions NOT forcing change, it'd be in Hollywood. They actively fight against change.
Re:Spoken like a true white collar worker (Score:3, Insightful)
...and screw over the UK for years to come