Those of you lucky enough to live in the L.A. area can catch an appearance by Sir Ian McKellen at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica on Tuesday, November 17th at 7:30 p.m. He will be appearing before a special showing of Mr Holmes, in which he portrays an aging Sherlock Holmes struggling to put closure on his last case from thirty years earlier. As we all know, our favorite wizard from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies is always entertaining and gracious to his fans, and may even discuss or take questions on his role as Gandalf, so get thee to the Aero on November 17th if you can! Tickets can be purchased here.
Tag: The Hobbit; The Hobbit movies
For those who are interested in the finances behind the making of The Hobbit trilogy, here’s a news story from the NZ Herald about the subsidies that Warner Brothers received (thanks to ringer Ataahua for the link):
New Zealand taxpayers put up an “extreme” amount of money to get the Hobbit films made here – and the real winner was Warner Bros, the Green Party says. The Government has defended the spending of close to $200 million as having wider benefits – including more than one in ten visitors citing the movies as a reason they became interested in visiting.
The latest statements for Warner Bros Entertainment’s New Zealand subsidiary, 3 Foot 7, show the firm received a large budget screen production grant of $38.3 million in the 12 months to March 31 this year. That adds to the $54.6 million it received in the 2014 year, $31.3 million in 2013, $46.9 million in 2012 and $20.2 million in 2011. Across the five years, production costs amounted to around $1.1 billion, meaning the Warner Bros unit has claimed about 17 per cent of total costs under the grant.
Green Party finance spokeswoman Julie Anne Genter said the level of taxpayer money stumped up was “pretty extreme”. Read More…