ABSTRACT
The Hobbit films were to be filmed in New Zealand but the International Federation of Actors, under the advice of an Australian-based actors union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, were unhappy that the production company was refusing to negotiate a collective agreement with local actors. The boycott incensed the film's director Sir Peter Jackson, an icon in New Zealand's flourishing film industry. Jackson is an Oscar-award winning director, producer and screenwriter, best known for his Lord of the Rings film trilogy, based on the novel by J. R. R. Tolkein, who also wrote The Hobbit. Jackson's big budget films provided more than just an economic boost for New Zealand, becoming an important symbol of national pride for a small, geographically isolated nation. The day after the Wellington march by film technicians, Jackson announced Warner Bros executives were coming to New Zealand to make arrangements to move The Hobbit offshore.
