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 | | Thursday, 6 December, 2001, 11:23 GMT New Zealand seeks Tolkien dividend  The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy trilogy by JRR Tolkien By Kim Griggs in New Zealand Middle Earth's geographical contours in the much anticipated film trilogy of JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings come courtesy of the islands of New Zealand. Now New Zealand hopes the project will give the country an economic boost. To capitalise on the December release of the first film in the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, the government has even appointed one of its members, Pete Hodgson, as unofficial minister for Lord of the Rings. It will spend NZ$4.5m ($18.6m) this year and next to promote New Zealand in the slipstream of the hoped-for success of the New Line Cinema films. 'Innovation' Mr Hodgson told the New Zealand parliament: "One objective is to maximize the international exposure of New Zealand as a tourist destination. "Another is to remind the world this film was made in New Zealand, using New Zealand skill and creativity and attitude. "A third is to showcase New Zealand with outstanding capacity for innovation." The official Lord of the Rings website has registered more than a billion hits - dazzling publicity for this small country.
"The website links New Zealand and New Zealand talent closely with the film," Mr Hodgson said. But even before the promotion of the films started, the economic impact in New Zealand and its capital, Wellington, where director Peter Jackson has his studios, has been considerable. In 2000-2001 almost NZ$600m ($382m) was spent making films in New Zealand, about 40% of it in Wellington. Employment in the film industry also soared during the Lord of the Rings shoot. About 20,000 extras were employed on contract in 2000-2001 - more than twice the previous year's total. It's this pool of experience that the New Zealand filmmaking industry hopes to tout. "Before, we've always sold ourselves on locations, and now we're selling ourselves on the ability to start and finish a film here," says Film Wellington's Jean Johnston. "We've got everything here - you name it, it's top of the art."
And with the premi�re of the first film looming, many others are adopting a Middle Earth attitude. This week, all letters going through New Zealand's major postal sorting centres will be postmarked New Zealand: Home of Middle Earth, complete with The Lord of the Rings logo. Six officially approved stamps depicting movie scenes, released this week, have been flying out of post office doors. "We're had four times as many orders as we would normally have," says New Zealand Post's Linda Morgan. "We've had three times as many hits on our website - 70% cent of them from overseas." Even without official approval, film-related businesses are springing up across New Zealand. Erica Challis, a musician by profession and one of the producers of a major fan website, has turned her passion for Tolkien into a potential business. She and tour operator Vic James are putting together tours of all of the sites used in the making of the film. "We're letting the landscape speak for itself. "The way I look at it is that it's a little bit like an archaeological tour." The real test, though, will be whether the world likes what it sees on screen in the next few weeks. | |
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