A film needs to make roughly twice its production budget to break even, that is because (as a rule of thumb) half the value of the ticket sales go to the theatres and the distributor. As well as the production costs there are the world wide marketing costs which are estimated at $60M for King Kong (2005).

I’d say that Universal got their money back on Peter Jackson’s King Kong but not a lot more, so given the money involved and the talent involved I’d say it’s a ‘flop’.

And I say this as a fan of the movie and of most of Sir Peter’s work, even if he needs to cut an hour our of most of his movies.

The world needs to be informed that New Zealand is over rated as a tourist destination

I thought ‘Rusty’ wants eco-tourism to be NZ’s economic salvation?

Early reviews indicate it is a slow moving, boring steaming pile of crap anyway….

Wot, like LOTR?

(This could be a bigger flop than King Kong)

The latter statement doesn’t necessarily follow from the former.

Longknives, I detect an attack of trilogosis hobbititis. Take 10 aspirin and stay in your room for three years without reading or watching anything. The condition will inevitably pass when the current devotees have advanced to a mental age of 15 by that time.

Why does everyone have to supplicate themselves to Peter Jackson just because he is a New Zealander? Can’t we judge a film on it’s merits? This ‘it must be the best film ever because it was made in New Zealand’ shit just doesn’t wash with me….

I am not a great fan of LOTR and quite frankly, I can live happily without it.
But like it or not, LOTR and the Hobbit is great for NZ in many ways and that’s what counts.

I wish people would stop trying on shit on every achievement this little country makes, whether it’s a movie or whether it’s being one of the least corrupt countries in the world.