By Patrick Gower
John Key spent last night at dinner with Hollywood moguls, and he's now calling film director James Cameron 'Jim’.
But despite the friendly talk, there's been no escape for Mr Key from the Kim Dotcom debacle.
Chris Dodd – who heads Hollywood lobby group the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) – was also at dinner. And yes, Dodd wanted to know what was happening with its number one enemy – Dotcom.
“It did come up with Chris Dodd, in passing reference,” says Mr Key. “He mentioned the Megaupload case in New Zealand and that was really it.”
Labour MP Grant Robertson isn’t surprised.
“There's no way that John Key could've gone to America and not expected to have been talking about this,” he says.
Dotcom kept up his Twitter attacks on Mr Key and the MPAA again today, saying: "Chris Dodd and John Key are meeting in Hollywood. The puppeteer and his keynocchio."
And when someone tweeted Dotcom asking if he had any jobs going, Dotcom replied: "If you work for the MPAA you could be my whistleblower. Who wants to be a millionaire?"
There have been closed-door meetings at the big studios for Mr Key, but he says it's about jobs, not Dotcom.
“Dotcom's got absolutely nothing to do with the purpose of coming here – that's about making movies in New Zealand,” he says.
But the Dotcom debacle just won't go away. The irony here is that Dotcom got into New Zealand thanks to a National Party immigration policy which saw him invest $10 million in the country.
It’s a fair guess Mr Key and his colleagues wish that had never happened.
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