Unionized Canadian actors will be able to perform in the upcoming New Zealand shoot for The Hobbit after ACTRA gets set to lift its do-not-work order.

Sources at ACTRA indicate the Canadian union will follow the lead of the Screen Actors Guild, AFTRA and other international unions that have already rescinded their boycott of the New Zealand production by the Warner Bros. studio and director-producer Peter Jackson.

ACTRA first urged its members on October 6 to “play no part” in helping the Hobbit producers hire actors on union contracts should they choose to exit New Zealand and shoot in Canada.

“Our message to the producers of The Hobbit is simple: You can’t hide here in Canada,” Ferne Downey, ACTRA national president, said at the time.

But by lifting that do-not-work order, ACTRA members will be free to perform in The Hobbit under union contracts.

With local and other foreign actors unions similarly rescinding their no-work orders, production on adapting The Hobbit novel for the big screen is set to start in New Zealand in February.

But Warner Bros. and Jackson are warning they may yet take the movie shoot off-shore if labor disruption flares up again.

Peter Jackson’s Wingnut Films in a statement said “the lifting of the blacklist on The Hobbit does nothing to help the film stay in New Zealand.”

The producer insisted that “the damage inflicted on our film industry by (the union) is long since done.”