The NZ government is starting to release internal discussions that took place during the uproar over where The Hobbit was going to be filmed.
If you remember, the threat of a boycott initiated by some New Zealand actors who wanted to unionize caused many NZ film industry workers to protest fearing WB would make the film elsewhere.
I’ve always felt that this was not true and that the real reason Peter Jackson and WB were threatening to take The Hobbit away from NZ was a bluff to wrangle more money out of the government.
The NZ Herald is reporting on email statements made by Peter Jackson to the NZ government that show while he was publicly saying the union boycott was a threat, he privately told the NZ government the opposite.
Sir Peter Jackson told the Government he did not believe an international actors’ boycott would force The Hobbit overseas, emails show.
The message, sent to the office of Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee on October 18, is in stark contrast to comments the film-maker made earlier in the month.
VFX Soldier 
Mein Gott!
You mean … somebody in management was LYING!?
Say it ain’t so!
Thanks VFXSoldier for pulling this together.
International unions are a real threat to international corporations.
What’s the point of being an international corporation if you can’t exploit a workforce someplace.
[…] At the same time there was a international labor dispute between the actors union and Peter Jackson. WB and Peter Jackson blamed the dispute as a threat to take the film elsewhere, but at the same time, internal emails between Jackson and the NZ government showed that was not the case. […]
[…] In fact, it was later revealed that email exchanges with the NZ government showed that while Peter Jackson was publicly saying the union boycott was a threat, he privately told the NZ governmen… […]