As “The Hobbit” inches closer towards a seemingly inevitable greenlight, it still faces its biggest hurdle yet, a demand from New Zealand unions for an agreement on wages and working conditions. The situation quickly got ugly with both Peter Jackson and the studios — Warner Bros., MGM and New Line — threatening to move the production from its long standing home. Well, speaking to New Zealand radio on Monday, “The Hobbit” co-writer and co-producer Philippa Boyens has indicated overtures have already come from other nations to host the production.
“Warner Brothers’ studios are running the numbers on five to six different locations,” Boyen said. “That’s very real and that has put at risk the livelihoods of countless thousands of New Zealand industry workers.”
“The dispute over job security and working conditions, in which New Zealand film workers have been backed by actors’ unions in Canada, Australia and elsewhere, has thrown doubt on how stable our industry is in terms of industrial relations,” Boyens said. “That is what is being put in jeopardy, not whether the production goes forward, but whether it’s made here.”
It certainly seems that the threats from both the director and studio were far from empty, so what nations are said to be in the running? Canada, Australia, Scotland, Ireland and the United States have all apparently thrown their hat in the ring, and offering producers money-saving incentives, to the bring $500 million, 3D production to their shores. Also remember that Jackson initially hinted at eastern Europe being a possible location — it has emerged as a place to shoot action films on the cheap over the past few years — and it’s unknown at this time just which locations in particular Warner Bros. accountants are running numbers on at this time.
That said, earlier in the week, everyone involved seemed hopeful that a resolution for the union mess would be found, and certainly Warner Bros. would probably prefer not to have to spend millions to move/rebuild the nearly completed sets to another country entirely. But at this point, Warner Bros. are probably taking precautions and setting up some possible second and third options should they have to exercise it. It’s another intriguing twist to the saga of “The Hobbit” that continues to unfurl even before the film gets in front of cameras. [The Province]
Just from a "similar looking locations" point of view: Australia, Czech Republic/Budapest/Romania, Ireland, Western Canada (British Columbia/Alberta). The US….I dunno…Alaska maybe…or Oregon??? The "usual places" for cheap film locations in the states (California despite the expense, New Mexico, Arizona etc) all seem a bit of a stretch to recreate Middle Earth as they're more flat/dessert terrain.