Peter Jackson axed from Hobbit (can Brett Ratner be far behind?)

[Fifthfiend]

Peter Jackson: I Won't Be Making 'Hobbit'
By Associated Press (http://www.amny.com/entertainment/news/wire/sns-ap-people-peter-jackson,0,6763409.story)

November 21, 2006, 1:00 PM EST
WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- Peter Jackson says he will not be directing a movie based on J.R.R. Tolkien's novel "The Hobbit" or a planned prequel to "The Lord of the Rings."

In a letter posted on Theonering.com., Jackson and partner Fran Walsh said an executive from New Line Cinema had called to tell them the studio was moving ahead with "The Hobbit" without him.

"Last week, Mark Ordesky called Ken (Kamins, Jackson's manager) and told him that New Line would no longer be requiring our services on `The Hobbit' and the LOTR `prequel,'" the 45-year-old New Zealand director wrote.

"This was a courtesy call to let us know that the studio was now actively looking to hire another filmmaker for both projects," he said.

Robert Pini, a New York-based representative for New Line Cinema, said Tuesday the studio had no comment.

New Line Cinema holds the rights to produce "The Hobbit" and Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer has the rights to distribute it.

Jackson, who shepherded Tolkien's Middle-earth saga to the screen in a series of three films, won a best-director Oscar for 2003's "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." The trilogy also includes 2002's "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" and 2001's "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring."

A spokesman for Wingnut Films, Jackson's production company in Wellington, who spoke on his standard condition that he not be named, confirmed Tuesday the letter was genuine.

The announcement came amid an ongoing dispute between Wingnut Films and New Line Cinema over the amount Jackson was paid for "The Fellowship of the Ring," including DVD payments.

While Jackson hasn't said how much he believes he was underpaid, The New York Times last year quoted his lawyers as saying it was as much as $100 million. He is suing New Line Cinema over the shortfall.

The Dominion Post newspaper quoted Jackson as saying that because he and Walsh didn't want to discuss upcoming movies "until the lawsuit is resolved, the studio is going to have to hire another director."

"We are very sorry our involvement with `The Hobbit' has ended this way," the pair added.

Plans for Jackson to make a $128 million movie version of the sci-fi video game "Halo" were also scrapped this month after backers 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures pulled out.

Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy grossed nearly $3 billion at box offices worldwide.

* __

New Line is a unit of Time Warner Inc; 20th Century Fox is owned by News Corp.; Universal Pictures is owned by NBC Universal, a joint venture of General Electric Co. and Vivendi Universal; MGM is owned by a consortium of Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Sony Corp., Comcast Corp., DLJ Merchant Banking Partners and Quadrangle Group.

[8-Bit Idiot]

I'm gonna go flip a coin to see wether or not this is a good thing or a bad thing.

*flips coin*

EDGE!? WHAT THE HELL!? Guess I'll have to wait and see...

[Mirai Gen]

Hm.

I partially want to slap them for being idiots, but at the same time, Peter Jackson is a whiny bitch.

My coin's on "edge" too.

[Fifthfiend]

I might be split on this too except I just know his replacement's gonna be Michael Bay or somebody, and nobody needs that.

[Azisien]

Whiny, how so? If someone shortpaid me by $100 million, there'd be a lawsuit.

Also, I think it's probably a real shame. At the very least, we know Jackson is pretty passionate about his projects, and seems to deliver some damn fine product. With another director...we might not have that assurance. However, all is not lost if they can find another director equally passionate about doing The Hobbit (my favorite Tolkien book) justice.

[Fifthfiend]

Whiny, how so? If someone shortpaid me by $100 million, there'd be a lawsuit.

Also, I think it's probably a real shame. At the very least, we know Jackson is pretty passionate about his projects, and seems to deliver some damn fine product. With another director...we might not have that assurance. However, all is not lost if they can find another director equally passionate about doing The Hobbit (my favorite Tolkien book) justice.

I'm mean, I'm sure Michael Bay's gonna be really passionate about introducing Scarlet Johannsen as the five foot ten love-interest hobbit and then having F-16s blow up Doom Mountain.

[Azisien]

Did you just say Scarlet Johannsen? Well, I'm sold!

[Archbio]

Two words: less slowmotion.

[Fifthfiend]

Did you just say Scarlet Johannsen? Well, I'm sold!

Additionally, it just occurred to me that F-16s demolishing Mount Doom would be totally awesome.

Two words: less slowmotion.

You could have just said three words, you know.

[RickZarber]

Two words: less slowmotion.Ah man, that's right! They won't need to break it into two movies anymore!

Seriously, as much as I loved The Lord of the Rings, I'm not heartbroken over this. There are plenty of other directors out there in this big wide world. And The Hobbit doesn't even really strike me as a PJ type story, anyway. There's not enough (melo)drama.

The only thing I really care about is that Ian McKellen goddam better be Gandalf again.

[gurusloth]

Why don't they just get the guy who made Willow? Even better, just re-release the movie and change the name, I doubt anyone would know.

;)

[Archbio]

You could have just said three words, you know.

Less is more?

[Magus]

What? That's pretty crazy. PJ is the man with those LOTR movies. Must be Tolkein's revenge from the grave for cutting out "The Scouring of the Shire" from Return of the King. Yes, I wanted to see midget armies beat on orcs. Is that so wrong?! Anyway, you can cut out Tom Bombadil, but you can't very well cut out the damn ending to the book! No closure on Saruman in that rape, either. Oh, PJ! You fool!

And I'm sure all the Halo fans are mad over that Halo movie getting canned, though seriously I can't see a Halo movie being taken seriously. The games maybe, but look at the outfits the main guys wear, they're just so video-gamish. I mean you could throw lots of money at it but it still might have turned out campyish. It's hard to explain. Kind've like how Street Fighter The Movie was brought down even more by the outfits they wore in it (nothing could have saved it but realistic clothing might have).

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

I'm happy. Peter Jackson isn't a good director and I think he hurt the Lord of the Rings movies, although I'm in the minority.

What good things came out of those movies I think came from WETA and smaller groups of people working on sets, etc. And the two directors who got to do the 'lesser' scenes did a much better job in my opinion.

[Tydeus]

I'm happy. Peter Jackson isn't a good director and I think he hurt the Lord of the Rings movies, although I'm in the minority.

What good things came out of those movies I think came from WETA and smaller groups of people working on sets, etc. And the two directors who got to do the 'lesser' scenes did a much better job in my opinion.

Wow. Someone who can seperate art direction from directing. I thought I was the only one. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Petey, but furrowed brows != good acting. But then again, when your line is "these mountains be cursed," what else can you do, really? Brow furrowing is pretty much your only friend in that situation. The result, of course, is nine hours of scrunchy-faced people talking about cursed mountains and cursed marshes and cursed jewlery and cursed people and of course, cursed hexes, spells, and -- what else? -- cursed curses. But, damn if it didn't look even better than anything I had ever imagined while reading the books.

Still, no movie that has a 10:1 ratio of slow fucking motion close-up shots of overwrought reactions to what's happening to what's actually fucking happening, deserves the Oscar for BEST EDITING. Does anyone else see the inherent madness in such a proposal?

And, yeah, I overdid it with the "Best Editing" italicizing etc, but it still wasn't even a millionth as unecessary as the last forty-five minutes of Return of the King.

[Mirai Gen]

Peter Jackson's not the most terrific of directors, but I liked him perfectly well.

Besides; the whole close-up slowmotion thing worked more often than it didn't. And, well, isn't that the editor's job to cut for the slowmo-happy director?

Not a film buff, but I liked Lord of the Rings and thought that Jackson did perfectly fine. Hell; I had a good reaction to when Boromir died. That was slo-mo athon, but at least had the emotion it needed.

[Archbio]

The theatrical version of Fellowsip of the Ring got all the good slowmotion bits, and very few aberrant ones, as far as I can remember.

Gandalf's death actually benefitted from the slowmotion. At the time I thought a great deal of the whole following sequence. Having seen the two other movies, the extended cut of Fellowship and Peter Jackson's version of King Kong, however, it's hard for me not to think that Peter Jackson has some kind of debilitating, progressive, pathological compulsion to stretch everything out.

In light of this, maybe the Gandalf thing was a lucky shot! The law of averages was on his side.

[Tydeus]

Not a film buff, but I liked Lord of the Rings and thought that Jackson did perfectly fine. Hell; I had a good reaction to when Boromir died. That was slo-mo athon, but at least had the emotion it needed.

Yeah -- they were very enjoyable movies, but in the same way (for me) that fast food is satisfying; you enjoy it, but you wouldn't exactly call it high quality, right?

Craftsmanship is important to any art form, really, and LOTR lacked craftsmanship tremendously in everything but their visual designs. Still, fun movies, and they could have easily been entirely bad -- imagine them without the incredible conception of the LOTR world. *shudder*

[Demetrius]

A little aside, but what was the prequel they were talking about? Is this like the unfinished stories thing or something 100% Hollywood evil?

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

A little aside, but what was the prequel they were talking about? Is this like the unfinished stories thing or something 100% Hollywood evil?


I am sincerly hoping it is the Unfinished tales, or the Silmarilion. But it is hollywood so they will.

[I_Like_Swordchucks]

Did you just say Scarlet Johannsen? Well, I'm sold!

Second that.

There's a girl that goes to my school that looks kind of like Scarlett. She's as hot as hell.

And I liked LOTR, dammit. I thought he did the books justice, and not many directors can do that.

[Bells]

the thign with the Slowmotion is that on the first movies it made frodo look likea fool...

Really... there were people on the theater saying "GODDAMMIT FRODO!! Stop fuckign Dying!!

Also... the 3rd movie were the screen goes blank like 375 times... lots of people getting up only to sit again to see the rest of the movie... again and again...

So yeah... not "OMG editing" but a good movie overall... so... as long as they dont pull a "Episode 1" out of this, it can be a decent movie...

[Roy_D_Mylote]

Oh come on. The Silmarillion is impossible to get through. It's just bad. LOTR? Great. The Hobbit? Excellent. But The Silmarillion...no.

[RickZarber]

Oh come on. The Silmarillion is impossible to get through. It's just bad. LOTR? Great. The Hobbit? Excellent. But The Silmarillion...no.Bah. You just have to take it piecemeal. If you try to read it like a novel, you're screwed. But I've found that once you've worked your way through it (in my case, with the help of photocopied geneology charts and maps for constant reference), subsequent readings are far easier and both more enjoyable and more comprehensable.

But it'll never be a movie. The Tolkien Estate will never sell the rights. And it's probably for the best.

A little more on-topic, I read something that struck me as odd: apparently there's a rumor floating around that they want Sam Raimi to direct. :brow:

[Azisien]

A little more on-topic, I read something that struck me as odd: apparently there's a rumor floating around that they want Sam Raimi to direct. :brow:

Wait, so....

1) Scarlett Johannson
2) F16's dogfighting Smaug and blowing up the Lonely Mountain
3) Bruce Campbell as Beorn

What's not to love so far?

[RickZarber]

3) Bruce Campbell as BeornBwahahaha. That is fantastic. Thank you, Azisien, for that wonderful mental image.

[ElfLad]

No, man, Bruce Campbell as Gandalf. That way, we can get the "This is my boomstick!" line when he kills goblins.

Also, Ent-rape.