THE BUSINESS HERALD

I enjoy this lively section in the Friday issue of the New Zealand Herald each week and John Drinnan's Media column is the section I always read first.

Here is one of his story's from today's issue:

MOUNTAIN HIGH
Filming for the movie adaptation of Maurice Gee's Under the Mountain starts on August 11 around Auckland and will conclude in October.
The film will be released in New Zealand next year by Walt Disney Studio Pictures.
Producers suspended the production on the eve of filming on May 5 after one of the investors, UK company Capitol Films, bailed out at the 11th hour.
Under the Mountain is a fantasy adventure story about teenage twins who battle dark forces hidden beneath Auckland's volcanoes.

The film industry magazine On Film reports that a new taxpayer incentive - the Screen Production Incentive Fund - helped back it.
"The SPIF has also been announced, which will obviously have an enormous positive benefit for us," said producer Richard Fletcher, of Liberty Films. "So with the combination of the existing funding we had from the Film Fund, New Zealand On Air and TVNZ [which has NZ television rights], the SPIF and the pre-sales, we now have a small gap in the finance to fill," he told On Film.
Under the Mountain is also produced by Jonathan King and Matthew Grainger of Index Films and Richard Fletcher of Liberty Films. Chris Hampson, Chris Bailey and Trevor Haysom (In My Father's Den) are the executive producers.
King most recently directed and wrote Black Sheep.

Meanwhile, Television New Zealand is reporting solid sales for its DVD reissue of the children's TV series of Under The Mountain, produced by Tom Finlayson and Chris Bailey. TVNZ said 4000 copies had been issued so far.

Footnote:

Under the Mountain is a Puffin paperback of course and The Bookman is looking forward to seeing a new film tie-in cover. The one shown above is not a great advertisement for cover art and design.

As Rachel has now pointed out that is an old cover I am showing at the head of the story, happens to be on my copy (!), and the latest one is much better (left) and illustrates how far NZ cover design has progressed. Thanks Rachel, I agree.