TVNZ reports that  Prime Minister John Key will be dining with Warner Bros. executives in Los Angeles on his way to Washington, D. C. to meet with President Obama and other officials. Key negotiated with Warner execs last year when a labor dispute threatened to drive the Hobbit production to a different country. Extra tax incentives and a change in labor laws convinced WB to keep the production in New Zealand.

According to Key: “They are very keen to build a long-term relationship with us. They see us as a strategic partner and New Zealand as a quirky but talented little market that’s quite cheap.” The report also says: “Before leaving yesterday, Key told reporters the Government wanted to build a partnership with Warner Brothers ‘like they have with the United Kingdom, where they film the Harry Potter movies’.”

Maybe he’s being overly optimistic, but perhaps The Hobbit will continue to support the Kiwi film industry, a tradition started by The Lord of the Rings. After all, Wellington isn’t all that much further from Los Angeles than London is.

I just ran across an interview with Rod Perry, the creative director and co-president of The Ant Farm. That’s the company that makes a lot of the trailers for Hollywood’s big releases, including LOTR.

He makes an interesting remark about LOTR: “Perry recalls how relieved executives at New Line Cinema felt when the very first focus group — yes, trailers get focus-grouped, just like movies — for the trailer the Ant Farm made for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring responded enthusiastically to it.” Given how little finished footage those executives would have seen by then, I can imagine that they were relieved! Anyway, check out the interview to read about other trailers and the process by which they’re made.

With all the financial woes the country has gone through recently, the news that DreamWorks has left Paramount as its distribution partner and signed on with Universal may seem like small potatoes. Still, it’s a big shift within Hollywood, and recent news about it indicates that not one but two of Peter Jackson’s current projects are being affected. more »

In Chapter 4 of The Frodo Franchise, I discuss how studios with big franchises can line up “brand partners” to help bear the ballooning costs of advertising blockbusters. Other companies with brand-name recognition use characters or images from the film in the ads for their own products. They get to associate those products with a popular (with luck!) film, and the producer can get tens of millions of dollars in free ads. The Lord of the Rings had such partners as JVC, Kia, Duracell, and Verizon.

Now Variety has posted an excellent story on the brand partners for the upcoming James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. Author Marc Graser quotes industry estimates that put the amount of free advertising for the previous Bond entry, Casino Royale, at around $100 million. Probably that much will be spent on this new one. Graser also talks about which companies are on board this time and the new Bond-themes products that they plan to release in conjunction with the film. Omega watches, Smirnoff vodka, and Virgin Atlantic are among the associated brands. (The Trilogy had Air New Zealand, the main example I used in my book.)

If you were intrigued by the way these big companies help each other in creating mutual publicity, Graser’s article lays the whole thing out clearly and succinctly. You can be sure that the same sort of thing will happen with The Hobbit and “Film 2.”