Amazon is spending $465 million filming the first season of The Lord of the Rings TV series, but it's managed to grab 25% of those costs back from the government of New Zealand.
As Reuters reports, the New Zealand Screen Production Grant was already set to give Amazon a 20% grant towards the production, but the government has decided to increase that by another 5%. So in total, Amazon will now receive roughly $116 million of those production costs back.
As to why New Zealand is being so generous, it's all about jobs. "The agreement with Amazon ... generates local jobs and creates work for local businesses," Economic and Regional Development Minister Stuart Nash said in a statement. "It will enable a new wave of international tourism branding and promotion for this country."
In total, there's 1,200 people employed due to the series production in Auckland, with 700 indirectly employed "by providing services to the production." The government must also be figuring this isn't going to be just one series for Amazon considering how popular The Lord of the Rings continues to be.
Amazon must be thinking the same thing, or at least hoping the series proves popular enough that further series productions are a no-brainer. As for the remaining $349 million cost, Amazon is likely to get that back via new Prime subscriptions by people wanting to watch the series (and all the subsequent Amazon purchases they make).