Corona | Coming Attractions

After the world watched Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, the director's native land of New Zealand became the visual default setting for J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. While it already enjoyed a healthy level of tourism for its sweeping, majestic vistas, Jackson's homeland experienced a new wave of interested travelers because of the popularity of the movies. In fact, several tourism companies now exist due to worldwide inquiries from people interested in visiting where the scenes in The Shire were filmed, or to gaze upon the Misty Mountains or plains of Rohan for themselves.

With the first movie of Jackson's new movie trilogy, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, set to open next month, audiences will be returning to Middle-earth once again. Air New Zealand thought that it would be a good opportunity to contact Jackson and his Weta Workshop team with an idea to do something different for those boring and stuffy air safety videos passengers must watch before their aircraft can take off. The company pitched Jackson with an idea to create an air passenger safety video using the characters from Middle-earth as well as the costumes and make-up used in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films. Jackson not only gave his stamp of approval to the endeavor, he also makes a cameo appearance as the airplane passenger who slips on the One Ring and disappears from sight.

The video has just premiered and is appearing on the screens of aircraft travelers flying Air New Zealand now. Watch the short film below and you'll learn that when Sauron has to fly in the air, he chooses to travel coach: