Signs there for Wellywood

Wellywood sign. Photo / Supplied

The Wellywood sign may have embarrassed residents of the coolest little capital in the world but at least they were talking about it - in Guam.

That was how Wellington Airport boss Steve Fitzgerald tried to sell the much-ridiculed sign to local politicians. In an email exchange during a public outcry over the sign, Fitzgerald claimed that Wellington had benefited from the controversy.

"The story has been reported in Australia [print and TV], UK, US, Malaysia, Guam, etc. This is name recognition for Wellington that we could not hope to afford to buy."

Guam is a remote United States territory 2500km north of Papua New Guinea, with a population of just under 200,000.

The sign, a 3m rip-off of the Hollywood sign, was proposed as a tongue-in-cheek monument to the capital's thriving film industry.

But after being first mooted in 2009, and again last year, Fitzgerald announced out of the blue that the sign would go ahead this year.

He said public figures stirred up the controversy and believed the anti-Wellywood movement was politically motivated.

Fitzgerald, an Australian, said in emails with Wellington mayor Celia Wade-Brown on May 24 that the airport had "absolutely no option" but to proceed with the sign.

"To back down in the face of a hate campaign would be to reward this behaviour," Fitzgerald wrote in emails released under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.

On June 1, in the face of a public outcry, the airport relented and announced it would set up a panel to consider alternatives to the sign.

Ahead of this story, Fitzgerald sent a statement from the United Kingdom where he is on holiday.

He said: "When announcing the launch of the [Wellywood] sign, the debate escalated significantly. The actions and comments from some individuals took an unreasonable tone with personal attacks on anyone who supported the idea."