Fire destroys Peter Jackson’s ‘Hobbit’ workshop
Deadline reports that flames engulfed the workshop of Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit”, more specifically, his New Zealand workshop set which would have been used for the Tolkien movies.
It took 50 firefighters three hours to quell the blaze in Wellington. All that’s left now is a burned-out warehouse at Jackson’s Portsmouth Miniatures Studio which had been used in the past as a specialist miniatures shooting facility, one of the few in the world, to create special effects for his “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and “King Kong.”
Meanwhile, there’s still a standoff between New Zealand and Aussie actors unions, joined by SAG and AFTRA and others, and Jackson, New Line, Warner Bros, and MGM.