It may take another quest to the Crack of Doom, but there’s new hope that Peter Jackson will return to direct “The Hobbit” and another “Lord of the Rings” prequel.
“Lord of the Rings” fans were in a frenzy last week, following the announcement from Jackson that New Line Cinema had sent a letter informing him that the film studio “would no longer be requiring our services on the ‘Hobbit’ and the ‘LOTR’ prequel.”
Now, the producer who owns the screen rights to “Rings” writer J.R.R. Tolkien is telling German Web site Elbenwald.de that Jackson will be back, once New Line’s contract expires.
“It will definitely be shot by Peter Jackson,” said Saul Zaentz, whose company owns Tolkien Enterprises.
“Next year, ‘The Hobbit’ rights will fall back to my company. I suppose that Peter will wait because he knows that he will make the best deal with us. And he is fed up with the studios. To get his profit share on the ‘Rings’ trilogy, he had to sue New Line.”
The wildly successful trilogy has grossed more than $3 billion worldwide. Jackson and the studio are at odds over accounting practices. In a lawsuit, the director has asked a third party to intervene.
“With us,” Zaentz told the Web site, “he knows that he will be paid fairly and artistically supported without reservation.”
Sir Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films, has voiced dismay over the decision to drop Peter Jackson as director of The Hobbit.
“I’m very sad as I should have relished revisiting Middle Earth with Peter again,” the actor wrote on his website.
“It’s hard to imagine any other director matching his achievement in Tolkien country.”
Jackson refused to discuss working on the Hobbit until a DVD royalty dispute with New Line Cinema was settled.
But New Line said it had only “limited time” to make the film and was proceeding without the Oscar-winning director.
Angry fans
The announcement has led to an online petition of 1,100 people asking for Jackson to be reinstated.
The petition created calls for The Hobbit to be filmed “the way it was meant to be or not at all”.
A website has also been set up urging a boycott of New Line, and fans have used weblogs and forums to question the studio’s judgement.
The petition argues that a Hobbit movie without Peter Jackson and his writers and special effects team is not what fans want.
“The characters and scenery will all be new and unfamiliar and props, costumes, and the backdrop of New Zealand will all be lost,” it said.
“Most likely even the original actors will not sign on to do it - can you imagine someone other than Ian McKellen playing Gandalf the Grey?”
A user of fan site theonering.net has registered the domain name boycottnewline.com, which links to another petition.
“Something must happen to get New Line and Jackson to talk about the [legal case], which has been hanging over future Tolkein-related productions since 2005,” the owner has written.
“The only way to get New Line to budge is to boycott future New Line productions until they sit down and hash things out with Peter Jackson.”
‘Wrong guy’
Before the story emerged this week, there was already a site - TheHobbitFilm - encouraging fans to ask top studio executives to get on with making the movie with Jackson.
It urged people to send letters or postcards because “the only way we are going to reach our goal of having a live-action version of The Hobbit from Peter Jackson and his team is by keeping after the studios who own the rights”.
However, other fans were more relaxed about the way the project was progressing.
“That’s the best news I’ve heard concerning Peter Jackson in about five years,” wrote one person on the ringbearer.org site.
“He’s exactly the wrong guy to handle The Hobbit in any way shape or form.”
Another, on theonering.net, said: “I’m sure The Hobbit will turn out to be a success even without the help of the great Peter Jackson.”
A spokesman for distributor MGM told Variety newspaper that the matter was “far from closed”, leaving some people hoping Jackson would return.
“Hopefully they will see the light and involve the two people who have proven worth in telling the stories,” one person wrote in the chatroom at theonering.net.
Neither New Line nor MGM was available for further comment.
Source: BBC News
Despite the frackus between New Line Cinema and the Jacksons (Peter and Fran Walsh), MGM studios has indicated that as far as they are concerned the matter of whether Jackson will helm the two proposed Hobbit films is “far from closed.”
Check out this article on the current Peter Jackson New Line Troubles. (Jackson Loses The Hobbit)
But MGM, the big guns behind the distribution rights to “The Hobbit,” told Variety that “the matter of Peter Jackson directing the Hobbit films is far from closed.” New Line, on the other hand, had nothing new to add.
Monday, November 27, 2006
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