New Zealand isn't far at all from the British center of the universe, other than in miles. Jackson's movies did pretty well in the UK; they weren't shown in the art house theatres with the subtitled movies.
Bear in mind Britain sent convicts to Australia because it was so remote. 'Antipodean' still carries with it a sense of remoteness in the UK even if the countries may be culturally close.
> Britain sent convicts to Australia because it was so remote
That was a long time ago. We could bear in mind that for most of human history, people in Britain had no idea that Australia or most of the world existed.
> 'Antipodean' still carries with it a sense of remoteness in the UK even if the countries may be culturally close.
A number of us have done our best to explain what the author is conveying with the choice of language he is using but if you don’t believe us then there’s not a lot more we can do.
