VIDEO: Kiwis Rally To Keep The Hobbit Production in New Zealand

No matter how brilliant the finished product, there is no way The Hobbit is going to be as great as the hijinks leading up to its production. There was that whole MGM bankruptcy followed by the lack of a director, and this was all before SAG and AFTRA went and got in a funk over casting non-union actors and Peter Jackson's set went up in flames. But now, for the (hopefully) final act, New Zealanders are taking to the streets to fight to keep the film's production in their home country! Hopefully a documentary film crew has been following this process.

The Kiwis are planning, through a lovely "Rally of Hope" trailer that has been making the rounds, to storm the streets on Monday, Oct. 25, while Warner Bros. executives are in town. The $500 million production is obviously huge to the country's economy and, from the looks of the video, people seem to not be doing much down there between Peter Jackson shoots.

As fate should have it, Monday is Labour Day in New Zealand, meaning that the entire country will have the day off to concentrate their efforts, from Auckland and Wellington to Christchurch and Matamata. Because, as the trailer so beautifully points out, "There can be no Middle Earth without New Zealand." Terry Gilliam must be loving this. [via Deadline]