Peter Jackson has issued a response to the boycott from Australia’s Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance for The Hobbit films. There’s been some conflict over contracts for local actors, making for the latest in a series of delays and hardships for the production.
“It sure feels like we are being attacked simply because we are a big, fat juicy target — not for any wrongdoing,” Jackson said in a statement. “We haven’t even been greenlit yet! It feels as if we have a large Aussie cousin kicking sand in our eyes.”
Jackson warned that the two-part filming of The Hobbit could be moved from New Zealand to Eastern Europe. “I also feel a growing anger at the way this tiny minority is endangering a project that hundreds of people have worked on over the last two years, and the thousands about to be employed for the next four years,” added Jackson. “The hundreds of millions of Warner Brothers dollars that is about to be spent in our economy.”
“Why is this endangered Because the ‘demands’ of MEAA cannot be agreed to, or even considered — by law — and therefore the only options that remain involve closing The Hobbit down, or more likely shifting the production to Europe. It could so easily happen,” he concluded ominously.
Source: NY Daily News
