Pieces are moving in Amazon’s Lord of the Rings shoot

Amazon’s Lord of the Rings shoot is set to resume in West Auckland.

An insider — the same person who tipped the suspension of production on March 15 — told the Herald that pre-production will resume next month, with filming from September.

Amazon did not immediately return a request for comment.

The US$1 billion ($1.56b) production is the most expensive TV or streaming series ever shot and involves about 800 cast and crew. Pre-pandemic, it was set to stream on Amazon’s Prime Video from early next year.

Some members of the production are now returning to New Zealand. The source said a few left the country before our borders were closed on March 19.

But hundreds of cast members and crew were stranded in Auckland as the hiatus called on March 15 turned into a multi-month layover.

They included Welsh actress Morfydd Clark, who has been tipped to play elf Galadriel.

Clark told the Daily Mail at the weekend that she was missing home, but praised Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s handling of the pandemic.

“[The country] went into lockdown so quickly . . . which has been quite effective,” she said.

New immigration rules published on June 8 — and subsequently backdated to June 2 — allow people working on a project of “significant economic value” to enter New Zealand if they follow self-quarantine guidelines. But the month before, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford granted 154 special exemptions — including 31 for crew arriving from Los Angeles to work on James Cameron’s Avatar sequel.

Amazon reportedly paid US$250 million for the right to make a Lord of the Rings series. Auckland’s hosting of the series was secured in September last year following drawn-out negotiations between the Government and Amazon Studios.

New Zealand and Scotland played off against each other in efforts to secure more favourable terms for its production.

Documents obtained by the Herald revealed Amazon was a tough negotiator. It pushed for a 5 per cent increase on the baseline subsidy of 20 per cent, a sweetener worth an extra $50m.

Amazon says Prime has 150 million subscribers, making it the world’s second-largest streaming service after Netflix (182m), and putting it ahead of Disney’s Disney+ (54m) and Hulu (32m).