Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: LOTR Premiere in New Zealand

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Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 12-01-2003, 03:08 PM:

Incredible scenes in Wellington (Wellywood) yesterday.
A freind of mine was 1 of the 100 000 lining the parade route. Tha atmosphere was electric.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2744683a10,00.html

Lord of the Rings just the beginning
02 December 2003

New Zealand should expect more extravaganzas such as that witnessed by tens of thousands of people at the world premiere of Return of the King, leading figures say.

Lord of the Rings Minister Pete Hodgson said that, while there would never be another Lord of the Rings, it had set the platform for other big budget films to be made in New Zealand.

"For those people who are anxious about The Lord of the Rings closing a chapter I would simply say, 'that's quite wrong', they have really successfully ensured that a chapter is just opening."

The success of The Lord of the Rings in New Zealand would be repeated with other films. "We simply need to say to anyone really, in London or Hollywood, ahem ahem, remember Lord of the Rings. That's that, I mean what else is there to say?"

Mr Hodgson said the trilogy had changed the nature of the tourism industry permanently.

"Some people would come to New Zealand for Lord of the Rings reasons for years to come in the same way that they go to Austria for Sound of Music reasons 40 years later."

It had also boosted the New Zealand film industry to a new, much higher and permanent plateau.

"There can be no doubt now that New Zealand can make pretty much any movie it turns its mind to, as it did with Lord of the Rings," he said.

As well, it had changed the world image of New Zealand – it had showed it was much more than a green mountainous country with lots of sheep. The information technology that went into the Rings trilogy was the best in the world and showed remarkable artisanship.

Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast said the movie had put Wellington on the international map like no other event in history.

She said more than 100,000 people had turned out to watch the parade through central Wellington yesterday and she was confident that if any Wellingtonian created the kind of masterpiece Peter Jackson had, the city would turn out again.

"This event absolutely confirms our status as the creative capital of New Zealand," Ms Prendergast said.

Tourism Minister Mark Burton said the Rings film project had showcased New Zealand in terms of the natural environment and the creative genius and technical talent of the country.

Mr Burton said it was hard to imagine a bigger celebration in Wellington, but the foundations laid by this project meant there would be many opportunities for creative New Zealanders to work here on future projects.

Dominion Post

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 12-02-2003, 12:10 AM:

quote:
A freind of mine was 1 of the 100 000 lining the parade route.

Did they throw Moon Pies or hand out ornately decorated coconuts? These things have to be done right.

Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 12-02-2003, 01:39 AM:

Moon pies, Coconuts?, is this an American thing?

BTW Street sweepers were out all night cleaning up streamers etc

Posted by Stephen Isaacs (Member # 1674) on 12-02-2003, 02:24 AM:

David, how did the opening go?

Posted by Paul Cassidy (Member # 951) on 12-02-2003, 04:19 AM:

Wellington did Well , Hmmmm 100,000 would most of the City wouldn't it ???? and Embassy really looked good [beer]

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 12-02-2003, 04:28 AM:

Where did the money for LOTR come from?

Posted by Warren Smyth (Member # 1838) on 12-02-2003, 05:24 AM:

quote:
Where did the money for LOTR come from?

That's a very good question. The fact is that Peter Jackson acquired the screen rights to the literary work. With this asset, he tried to get a number of off shore companies interested. It was too bigger project to be financed in New Zealand. After several rejections from the majors (didn't they stuff up), he tried New line as a last resort. They had a background of financing independent projects. He was only going to make one film. To his surprise, they said why not the three?

Although Peter has said recently, he had no idea of the magnitude of the task of shooting the three similtaneously, at the time, he and his team have pulled it off. They were working on it until about a week before the premier. There has been very long hours worked with no time off.

Because the film was largely financed off shore, you could say that it is an American film or at least a co production. Certainly, because of the controversial, complicated tax arrangement, the tax payer here would have been picking up the tab if the trilogy had been a financial failure. Now that it is clearly a success, foreign investors will do very nicely.

The really positive aspect is that it has helped to build a very significant film infrastructure here. Location filming and special effects were done in New Zealand. The King Kong remake will start production next year and when finished, Peter has said he wants to make some New Zealand films with local stories. He will certainly have the financial independance to so do. By the way, cocoa nuts don't grow in New Zealand - wrong part of the globe.

Posted by Stephen Brown (Member # 292) on 12-02-2003, 06:03 AM:

I would have thought that 100,000 would have been the entire Population of New Zealand [Big Grin]

Ah well whatever makes you guys forget the World Cup..

Steve Brown

Posted by Warren Smyth (Member # 1838) on 12-02-2003, 07:18 AM:

Actually, I think it's unfortunate that a direct lift from a local press release has appeared on this site, as there is always a large amount of hype with these subjects. I squirmed when I read it. You can take a lot of the comments from it with a grain of salt. It can often give rise to adverse reaction where there is sensitivity and that isn't limited to Australia.

quote:
I would have thought 1000,000 would have been the entire population of New Zealand

Well actually, 3.5 million might be closer. We are not THAT clever.

quote:
whatever makes you guys forget the world cup

I had before it even started. Actually, I don't think there is anything more ridiculous than seeing grown men chasing an oval ball in the mud. The fact that their reward is sometimes a broken neck provides very little additional attraction to me. I personally think netball is far more interesting to watch, more skillful and has far greater pace on television. Coverage of it here rates through the roof.

Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 12-02-2003, 07:32 AM:

You have a Lord of The Rings Minister? [Confused]

Does this mean now the trilogy is complete he is out of government ?

Posted by Warren Smyth (Member # 1838) on 12-02-2003, 09:01 AM:

quote:
you have a Lord of the Rings Minister

we have a Minister of the Arts and happens to be a she not a he. We have a Film Commision which receives government funding to support the film industry. LOTR did not receive any such subsidy however except, as I've mentioned, tax breaks.

Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 12-02-2003, 09:35 AM:

Warren said:

quote:
we have a Minister of the Arts and happens to be a she not a he

but in the original posting from David Favel it says

quote:
Lord of the Rings Minister Pete Hodgson

Posted by Jeff Stricker (Member # 224) on 12-02-2003, 12:20 PM:

I'm hoping they will do "The Hobbit" now that the Trilogy is complete. There's plenty of demand for more J.R.R.T. stuff and those that haven't read all the books (starting with the Hobbit) will appreciate how the story gets started.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 12-02-2003, 12:58 PM:

Today's Hollywood Reporter reports that Director Peter Jackson would like to film "The Hobbit" after he completes his current project "King Kong":

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/threast/pdfs/thre1202.pdf (See page 3)

Posted by Paul Cassidy (Member # 951) on 12-02-2003, 02:45 PM:

New Zealands Population has past 4 million , although sheep and cattle still out number the humans of Middle Earth [Big Grin]

and with a Land Area larger than the U.K (Scotland ,England ,Wales and Nth Ireland) there's alot of room to roam around , that's why it's such a good place to film in , and easy to travel from Snow Capped Mountian's to desert like conditions in only a couple of hrs flight and no modern day things to spoil sweeping film shots .

Posted by Kevin Wale (Member # 1851) on 12-02-2003, 03:19 PM:

4 million people that litterally risk every day of thier lives to being blown into space by the giant bomb of a volcano they live on. Is it really that beautiful(I know everything I have seen of it is amazing.)

New Zealand has the best epic/action director in the world right now. I hope you're able to have that take the industry to exciting places for you. I can imagine that there is a lot of excitement there overall right now.

Peter would like to make the Hobbit? WOW. He had said in the past in no uncertain terms that he wasn't even slightly interested in doing such a thing. I HOPE HE REALLY HAS CHANGED HIS MIND AND MAKES IT!!!!!!!!!

Posted by Paul Cassidy (Member # 951) on 12-02-2003, 04:18 PM:

Yes Kevin it is as nice as it looks in film , and the Aussies call us the "Shaky Isles" (mind you they call us many other things)as we do have a lot of earth tremors , but we are used to it and I tend to worry more about dangerous animals while overeas , as we don't have any such things here , like snakes, Bears , Lions except in the Zoo ,Auckland the largest City in New Zealand ( City of Sails ) Pop 1 million Approx is built on quite a number of Volcanic Cones , so the only thing that will most likely destroy the city (by natural causes ) is either an Earth Quake or Volcanic eruption as the City is well protected on both Coasts from storms or Cyclones tsunami. [Cool]

Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 12-02-2003, 06:12 PM:

"4 million people that litterally risk every day of thier lives to being blown into space by the giant bomb of a volcano they live on."

You mean like the Yellowstone Park which by estimates is 30 000 years overdue to blow. The last eruption covered Idaho with meters of volcanic ash.

Posted by Warren Smyth (Member # 1838) on 12-02-2003, 06:53 PM:

Thanks for the population update Paul. I'd forgotten we passed the 4 million.
Dick wrote

quote:
you have a LOTR minister does that mean now that the trilogy is complete, he is out of government?

The Dominion Post article to which you refer does give the impression that Pete Hodgeson is minister of LOTR. I can see how you have interpretted that he may be out of government. The fact is that there is no dedicated portfolio for LOTR. There is no such reference on his parliamentry web site. It is possible that Pete adopted the role as a first point of call for contact for matters arising from LOTR. This sometimes happens when events like the Americas Cup are staged here. Will he be out of a job? well Pete Hodgeson is Minister Fisheries, Enery, Research and Science, Crown Research, Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and convenor of the ministerial group on climate change. You decide.

Peter Jackson said the other day that he would like to do the Hobbit but there are rights complications with the work. They are apparently held by two other film companies.
Kevin wrote

quote:
4 million people that litterally risk every day of their lives to being blown into space by the giant bomb of a volcano they live in

I just love to read stuff like this, particularly when the writer believes it. Yes, we do have volcanoes and one or two are active but the risk is pretty minimal. The larger populated areas are hundreds of miles away. Incidentally, I was on Mount Ruapehu when it erupted a few years ago, providing television coverage. I stood in absolute awe. The sight and sound is something I will never forget. I consider it a priveledge to have experienced it.

Some areas on fault lines experience small earth quakes or tremors with some damage to buildings and roads. To put it into perspective, the largest quake took place in 1931 with a total loss of 256 lives. I don't think we have lost any since then as a result of a quake.

If you ever want to come over this way for a holiday Kevin, don't worry about the earthquakes. The chances are, you won't feel any. You have a far greater chance of being the victim of crime in some other parts of the world.