So how much is Australia bringing in?

[dalekboy]

Just grabbed the following from this article

"The film industry pumps $NZ285 million ($220 million) into Wellington each year."

Which has me wondering what Australia's film industry manages to turn over.

I'm partially wondering because I know that Peter Jackson's company is one of the one's that has helped create this number. And a fair chunk of that company's output has been genre based.

I just can't help but wonder about the claims that Australians aren't interested in Aussie produced SF&F film/tv hold up against this. So we won't accept Aussie genre product, but NZ is okay?

No point behind this, just thinking out loud.

Oh, for the record, I think the Wellywood sign is a bad idea. If there's a need to explain the humour to the locals, it's a problem. Plus if the industry slides down the track, it becomes a painful and embarrassing sight.

That said, I think a sign that just says Wellington would be great!

Comments

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

Well the original Hollywood sign as I remember was a real estate marketing device.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Hollywoodland!

They dropped the Land to remove the light to the housing estate, and reflect the district itself.

[mireille21.livejournal.com]

The sign might be a bad idea but I'm going to start using the term WEllywood from now on :)

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

We certainly use the term Wellywood when referring to the film industry here and PJ is just about a god locally. But that sign idea is just so tacky. And a lot of the film work (outside of Weta studios) has moved to Auckland already.

By the way, Jackson was one of the first to put S&SF genre stuff out there but only one of them. Cloud 9 (the Tribe) and Renaissance Pacific (Hercules & Xena) were in there too. BUT it took overseas recognition for any of them before local support picked up. I suspect the same attitudes are in place over your way.

[jblum.livejournal.com]

Definite yep on the overseas recognition -- and perhaps more to the point, Jackson's big hitters and the Raimi series were hugely American-backed productions, rather than primarily local ones... the Australian equivalent would be Star Wars ep2&3 and the Matrix trilogy, which no one really thinks of as Australian films. Full-fledged local productions, especially ones that are set locally, seem pretty scarce on both sides of the ditch!

[jblum.livejournal.com]

(that's full-fledged local genre productions)