Taxpayers face $12.7m or higher bill for Sir Peter Jackson’s delayed WWI museum
The country’s centrepiece commemoration of World War I has turned into a $12.7m headache for the Government after Sir Peter Jackson was almost three years late in delivering a high-profile recreation of Gallipoli trenches.The Great War Exhibition at Wellington’s landmark Dominion Building was initially intended to run for four years during the centenary commemorations of the 1914-1918 conflict, but its main attraction supplied by Jackson only opened this Anzac Day – months before the project is due to close.
Documents obtained under the Official Information Act show the 32-month delay to complete the Trench Experience – which matches the time it took the United States to enter World War I – compounded problems attracting visitors and sponsorship.
Taxpayers now face a $12.7m bill to restore the building to its original state, or a possible $50m cost if the Government has to buy the property to create a permanent museum.
The Left should have appreciated just how much of a cold blooded killer John Key was when it came to political violence far sooner than it did.
He showed his fangs at their most lethal over the original manufactured crisis at The Hobbit.
The cost of inflating this dispute into nation wide propaganda against Unions and Labour was an enormous corporate welfare bill and the re-writing of domestic employment law for an overseas Transnational.
When Key made ‘saving’ the Hobbit a bottom line, the Executives who turned up in their limos were already popping the champagne. They knew the second Key had publicly made it a must win, they could literally put any offer on the table and he would have to accept it.
That cost was one Key had no problems paying because the unspoken narrative for National was just too good to ignore.
That unspoken narrative went something like this…
“Those dirty pinkos are threatening an iconic NZ brand with their stupid Unions and over regulation. Why can’t little kiwi battler entrepreneurs like Peter Jackson just get on with making magic and not having to be bullied by those mean Unionists. It’s just another example of the Left killing the golden goose with their over regulation because Labour can’t manage the economy.”
…the backlash against Labour and the Unions was brutal as Key returned to Rome on his chariot declaring to the nation that he had won the war and we were going to film The Hobbit in NZ after all.
Meanwhile the Warner Bros Executives must have been screaming with laughter and high-fiving each other between kilo long lines of cocaine on the private jet flight back to LA.
I bet someone on that flight back must have referred to us as ‘The Shire’.
We lost so much because Key went into the negotiation already singling he’d pay any price to get his political victory.
Do we want films to come to NZ?
Of course.
Would we want The Lord of the Rings TV show to be filmed here?
Of course.
Do we want to allow National to manufacture another Hobbit crisis by claiming the Hobbit Law reform will jeopardise the possible filming of the LOTR TV series here?
Fuck no.
By focusing on the economics, the new Government undermines any attempt by National to generate another backlash and reduces any leverage for changes against the Hobbit Law reform.
If voters are seeing an enormous amount of cash for little return, threatening to not allow the LOTR TV series to be filmed here loses an enormous amount of its power.
It’s like when IRD go on strike, the public don’t demand worker rights, they celebrate. Threatening to not do something that costs us lots of money? That’s not much of a threat is it.
We want more film to be filmed here and we want our arts industry to thrive and there is most certainly a case for more public subsidy into our arts industry, of that there can be no denying and I for one believe the new Government should pour much more public funding into our film industry.
But not at the cost of another propaganda victory for National.
No. No. No.
There’s better ways to employ a Hobbit and smarter ways of getting there.
You’ll know this move to question the economics is a well placed punch by the squeals of the right wing Troll farm over at the NZ Herald.
And right on cue…
Mike Hosking: Wellywood film subsidies worth every cent
Deborah Hill Cone: Arts should never be underestimated
Bloody well siad there Martyn, why didn’t antone else pick this up????
The bloody media are all asleep at the bloody wheel while ‘Bomber’ Bradbury is the only one awake here!!!!
Fucken sad state we are now in, with only one captain at the helm now.
“The Left should have appreciated just how much of a cold blooded killer John Key was when it came to political violence far sooner than it did.”
In fairness, Matt Nippert did an excellent job covering this story:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12079538
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12072876
It is perhaps more than a little ironic that Peter Jackson’s personal fortune is estimated to be about $600 million. This is about the same amount NZ taxpayers have coughed up in subsidies to the big Hollywood studios since the “rebate” scheme began. That’s straight out corporate welfare with Sir Peter being one of its primary beneficiaries. So much for “tall poppy syndrome”.
Do we need more Hollywood crap made here? independent films yes ! …Weinsteins Hollywood no!
….and btw ‘The Lord of the Rings’ films imo were not as good as the books
…the films were too cartoonish and should have been filmed in the British Isles ( Tolkien country) where they were written and with much more understated subtle pre WW2 menace
…imo ‘The Lord of the Rings’ films were cartoonish overblown…and the menace was Hollywood schmaltz
Peter jackson has a net wealth of some $600 million, so I read.
His dalliances with the Natzo’s doom him to Hell as far as I’m concerned. I used to respect the guy. Now? I see a fat, whiny bastard who needs to fuck off, keep his mouth shut and hope’s his luck holds out.
You don’t know shit so keep your mouth shut.there is a bit more to it all and he has put a lot into the community and NZ as a whole.
Funny how the Right are opposed to “throwing money” at social problems, but not so opposed to “throwing money” at corporates. Corporate welfare seems to be tge exception to the rule.
So much for the neo-liberal free market of slashed regulations and no more govt handouts.
Jackson hasn’t made a decent movie since the “Bad Taste” days. The Rings movies – the first one largely excepted – were the most awful Hollywood schlock.
“…the original manufactured crisis at The Hobbit.”
I’ve never forgiven him for that dreadful business; at the time, I vowed that he’d get no more of the entertainment dollar from this household. And that’s the way it remains.
I am also enraged at how Wellington ratepayers have been rorted by him and his yet-to-eventuate movie museum. Never mind that fiasco over the war exhibition.
I was opposed in the first place to all that Gallipoli re-enactment, both there and at Te Papa; the whole idea of it seemed unbelievably intrusive to those of us with relatives whose remains are still there. This applies to my family: the remains of two of my uncles are at Gallipoli. No death certificates; so to the day she died, my grandmother hoped for the return of her boys. The eldest four of my father’s brothers went away to war; one came home. That fact reverberates through our family, right down to the present day.
The last thing I want is bloody Jackson interpolating himself and his ego into the Gallipoli story; I’m certain that he just sees it from the perspective of a computer game. Even if he doesn’t, he still has no business getting involved in it.
“I’ve never forgiven him for that dreadful business; at the time, I vowed that he’d get no more of the entertainment dollar from this household”
Damn straight. Stll haven’t seen any of his subsequent movies. Don’t intend to either.
Merci, D’Esterre, completely agree. Heavenly Creatures was good, and apparently his splatter films were, but I’m not splatter person.
Tolkien provides a convenient vehicle for bloody Jackson to show off his special effects- well – so does Gallipoli, and Gallipoli is a deeply important part of our history, and a sobering and enduring symbol of us as an emerging young country in our own right, and the last person who should be let loose to impose his “artistic” interpretation on a symbol which unlike Tolkien, touches the lives of real living Kiwi people, is bloody Jackson.
Nor is bloody Jackson necessarily kind to the more lowly of his workers.
Money hungry fulla, perhaps he could assist the homeless here in NZ or does he go by the Natzi motto “greed is good” ?
You all know shit if you all knew how much he has put into the Wellington community and NZ as a whole he is a very generous person and has keeped a lot of people in a job .
I only know of the one production house in Wellington ie Weta Works. There’s atleast 8 that I know of in Auckland. Maybe there’s more, maybe there’s less. But if you’re looking to get into the industry your best bet is probably make the move to Auckland and not take advice from some random avatar on the Internet.
Nathan Hopper: “if you all knew how much he has put into the Wellington community and NZ as a whole he is a very generous person and has keeped a lot of people in a job .”
Let’s be having the evidence of that, please.
But even were that so, he’s connived with the US movie industry to rort the NZ taxpayer. That’s what the above-mentioned Hobbit fiasco was about.
And as to jobs for local people, I remind you that US people working on the Rings movies referred to NZ contractors as “Mexicans with cellphones”. That was an eloquent illustration of how poorly-paid NZers were.
“You all know shit if you all knew how much he has put into the Wellington community and NZ as a whole he is a very generous person and has keeped a lot of people in a job .”
Oh, thats ok then.
One can be a self-serving rogue as long as he keeps a few people in jobs. Is that as low as the bar goes or can we notch it down a bit further?
Peter Jacksons lord of the rings TV series is yet another attempt to flog the dead horse that is Tolkien. The movies were dull, and god… so, so, so very bloody long. Which is in my opinion, very much like the books.
But it does raise the question… When was the last time Peter Jackson had an original idea? Was it “Braindead”? Or was it when he started whining about employment issues to the then National Government?
Sir Peter Jackson… Knight of the Corporate Order of Hackneyed and Unoriginal Ideas
that is another most excellent cartoon from mr evans…
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