The premiere that changed Wellington

A perfect Wellington day. Blue skies without a breath of wind, not a cloud in sight and all the world’s media watching.

Twenty years ago on December 1, 2003, the global premiere of the last film in Peter Jackson’s uber successful The Lord of the Rings trilogy saw 100,000 people packed into Wellington’s Courtenay Place as a parade of stars led by the film-maker made their way down a grand, hundreds of metres-long red carpet to the Embassy Theatre.

The Return of the King would, the following year, go on to be nominated for a whopping 11 Academy Awards and then win them all. The series made almost $3 billion at the worldwide box office, and today it’s still among the highest grossing film trilogies of all time.

According to historical Dominion Post reports, avid fans queued overnight along the Golden Mile behind barriers for a chance to see Hollywood celebrities Elijah Wood, Liv Tyler, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom and numerous elf, dwarf and hobbit extras. On the day, balconies and rooftops with a view of the parade were packed out in nearly every building.

Early in the afternoon, an Air NZ jumbo jet painted with scenes from the film and the company’s old slogan ‘Airline to Middle-earth’ got clearance to fly over Wellington Harbour.

Kerry Prendergast, Wellington’s mayor at the time, this week said the premiere put the capital on the world’s map. “That day, every Wellingtonian was as proud as I was,” she said.

While Wellington had always been an internationally regarded city; hosting the World of WearableArt, incredible landscapes, the national museum and the NZ rugby Sevens, for the first time, the premiere put the spotlight on the city’s film talent at an unimaginable scale.

Then and now, Wellington should count itself lucky that curly-haired, barefoot-loving Jackson, his wife, Fran Walsh, Sir Richard Taylor and his wife, Tania Rodger, choose to call the city home despite numerous offers over the years to move away, Prendergast said. “They continually support Wellington. With them comes this amazing cohort of experts.”

On the day, Porirua-born Jackson was as much of a crowd favourite as the film’s glamorous cast and crew, who left from Parliament in an open-topped motorcade of vintage cars, got out at Courtenay Place and spent two hours signing autographs.

Bloom thrilled locals wearing an “I love New Zealand” T-shirt, while Tyler threw away her heels so she could run about greeting fans barefoot – something she learned from Jackson, the actress said at

the time.

One VIP who failed to show was actor Christopher Lee. After learning all his scenes as evil wizard Saruman were cut from The Return of the King, he refused to attend.

Wellington’s economy was expected to make $10 million from hosting the premiere, but the event cost $1.8m, and the months leading up to the party were filled with squabbling about who would pay.

The city council had earlier pulled out of a $7m refurbishment of the Embassy ahead of the premiere, but bosses of the New Line studio insisted the city would lose the event if it was not revamped. And so $4.5m of ratepayer money was eventually loaned for the upgrade.

The guest list was capped at 2850 people, with many of those audience members having to view the concluding chapter at the now-shuttered Reading Cinemas down the road.

Prendergast said Wellington had never seen an event that big before, and the premiere was by no means accidental; taking hard work behind the scenes over years to pull off. “It gave the whole city a buzz. All of us felt part of it,” she said. “Fingers crossed it happens again.”

The celebrations were, she said, as much about the humble Kiwis “just like everybody else” who helped make the renowned films.

According to the Dominion Post, the big question of the day was whether Jackson would wear shoes. “And there he was, work complete, strolling down the red carpet in an old pair of black sneakers, the right lace undone and flapping along behind him,” a historical report said.