$1 BILLION AND COUNTING
They drank pinot noir and craft beer, and ate spaghetti alla chitarra at Amano in Auckland’s Britomart. The total bill was $1,428. They dined at Odette’s across town: $1,101.41. And they went to Waiheke for the day for $2,850. Amazon executives were here to discuss filming locations for their Untitled-but-clearly-Lord-of-the-Rings television series, and the New Zealand government was eager to make sure the trip left an impression. The hospitality was generous, noticeably more so than when some representatives from the New Zealand Film Commission stopped by Amazon Studios in Los Angeles in 2019 and were treated to an office lunch of “sandwiches and soda”.
For the past three years, the New Zealand government has pulled out all the stops to accommodate the biggest company in the world as it sought to make the most expensive television show in history. Convincing Amazon to film here required years of negotiations involving multiple government entities and closed-door meetings with ministers. One repeated sticking point was Amazon’s reluctance to guarantee that the show would be exclusively made in New Zealand. As negotiations dragged on, an initial plan to announce a deal on Frodo and Bilbo’s birthday — World Hobbit Day 2020 — did not come to pass.
In early 2021, it was finally declared that New Zealand would remain the home of Middle Earth for a show expected to last five seasons. The government would kick in the standard 20 per cent rebate on local spending for big international productions, plus a 5 per cent “uplift” for projects with “significant economic benefits”. In return, the government secured the rights to use the series as a branding tool for years to come.
By then, filming was already underway and shrouded in secrecy. The studios in Kumeu on the industrial outskirts of West Auckland were closed sets, with codenames for each location and scene. Huge water tanks were being used, but no one could say why. There were rumours of filming in Riverhead Forest and Muriwai, Queenstown and Fiordland. An urgent casting call was sent out in June 2020 for a show that the talent agency declined to name, seeking “funky looking people” with “long skinny limbs, deep cheekbones, lines on your face, scars, ears that stick out, bulbous or interesting noses”. One casting agent found great success in small town pubs, particularly the Puhoi Pub. Non-disclosure agreements were so strict that local actors couldn’t even reveal what accent they spoke in, let alone their character’s name.
The rewards, we were assured, were going to be huge: for film, of course, and tourism. But also technology, manufacturing, potentially even space. That was the rationale for the very steep price tag. If a location scout for Amazon flew from Auckland to Queenstown for $200, Amazon would get $50 back from the New Zealand government. A coffee bought by a production runner in Muriwai costs $4, and Amazon would get $1 back. The directors (all international) and stars (80 per cent international) worked here, so Amazon would be refunded 25 per cent of their salaries. The first season alone was estimated by economic development minister Stuart Nash to cost an eye-watering $650 million, which would have meant an equally teary contribution of around $162 million from the New Zealand taxpayer.
Then, on 13 August, a few weeks after shooting on the first season wrapped, Amazon abruptly announced that it would be moving production to the United Kingdom. Some local crew were notified by email 20 minutes beforehand; others found out through media reports. Amazon said that it would no longer “actively pursue” the 5 per cent uplift, but it will still receive the 20 per cent rebate for what is expected to be the costliest season of the show by far: the huge first-season budget, an Amazon executive said, was “building the infrastructure of what will sustain the whole series”. Meanwhile, New Zealand lost what government officials saw as the key advantages of the deal: thousands of jobs and an exclusive lock on the Middle Earth brand. Even without the uplift, taxpayers are expected to funnel as much as $132 million to a company whose owner’s net worth rivals New Zealand’s GDP and who recently flung himself into space for fun.
Under the agreement between Amazon and the government, the company was required
