by Ethan Anderton October 22, 2014Source: Air New Zealand^[1][2]

There's no doubt that New Zealand has become a popular travel destination thanks to the fact that the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy were filmed in the country. They've really embraced the allure this aspect brings to the country with a giant Gollum statue at the Wellington airport, not to mention other sculptures on hotels. Air New Zealand has been especially happy to have The Hobbit for promotion, previously creating a safety video with influences from the Middle-Earth fantasy and even putting the dragon Smaug on some of their planes. Now they've put together a new safety video with Peter Jackson.^[3][4][5][6]

Here's The Hobbit trilogy infused air safety video straight from Air New Zealand^[7]:

The video is directed by Taika Waititi, the man who co-directed the indie vampire mockumentary comedy What We Do in the Shadows^[8] with fellow New Zealand native Jemaine Clement. In the video, titled "The Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made," you'll spot Elijah Wood along with cameos by Sylvester McCoy, Dean O'Gorman and Weta Workshop co-founder Sir Richard Taylor. Plus, there's Peter Jackson himself, who says, "Air New Zealand has created yet another fantastic video to celebrate The Hobbit films.I had a lot of fun on the set with Taika and the team and look forward to seeing the video on board." We hope all this publicity for New Zealand is good, especially since The Hobbit trilogy cost $745 million to make^[9].

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit... J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit^[10], being directed by Peter Jackson as three separate movies, is set in Middle-Earth 60 years before Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, which Jackson and his filmmaking team brought to the big screen in a trilogy ten years ago. The films, with screenplays by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson, were shot consecutively in 48FPS 3D using the latest cameras. The Hobbit follows the journey of Bilbo Baggins, played by Martin Freeman, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor. The Battle of the Five Armies arrives in theaters in HFR, IMAX & 3D on December 17th^[11] later this year. It all ends in December - see you then.

Find more posts in Hobbit, To Watch^[12][13]

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