Kiwis in King Arthur's court?

By Deborah Hill Cone

Friday 26th July 2002

Movie-making legend Steven Spielberg is considering this country as a location to shoot a major new mini-series on the life of King Arthur - despite a lack of tax breaks.

Cable television network HBO is close to giving the green light to Arthur, an eight-episode mini-series from Spielberg's DreamWorks Television and some of the same team that made phenomenally successful war series Band of Brothers.

That production was the most expensive mini-series ever made with a budget of $US125 million and Arthur, with two fewer episodes, is expected to cost about the same amount.

New Zealand is being considered as the location for the series, putting noses out of joint in the international film-making world.

The Times of London called New Zealand "the hottest moviemaking country in the world" and questioned why, in contrast, the UK was falling off the filmmakers map.

The Times said it had been announced Arthur would not follow Band of Brothers to be shot in the UK and revealed the £50 million shoot would most likely take place in New Zealand.

"When you take into account that Band of Brothers, which was made in Hertfordshire, employed 500 actors, 10,000 extras and countless crew, the effect could be devastating," the Times wrote.

Film New Zealand executive director Jane Gilbert said her office had been contacted about a project on the topic of King Arthur but she could not confirm it was the same one.

If the location contract is secured, however, it will be the second major coup for Ms Gilbert's office, which has been run on a shoestring from Trade New Zealand and the industry for 11 years.

Tom Cruise's period epic The Last Samurai is to be shot in Taranaki.

Trade bible the Hollywood Reporter said Arthur would revisit the mythology of King Arthur, Camelot and the knights of the roundtable mixing the fable with some documented accounts of the historic persons believed to have served as prototypes for the legend.

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