No Hobbit for Peter Jackson

Remove all ads!

It looks like Peter Jackson won't be doing The Hobbit. In fact, there's a lawsuit going on. Here's an excerpt from the e-mail received by TheOneRing fansite:

Several years ago, Mark Ordesky told us that New Line have rights to make not just The Hobbit but a second "LOTR prequel", covering the events leading up to those depicted in LOTR. Since then, we've always assumed that we would be asked to make The Hobbit and possibly this second film, back to back, as we did the original movies. We assumed that our lawsuit with the studio would come to a natural conclusion and we would then be free to discuss our ideas with the studio, get excited and jump on board. We've assumed that we would possibly get started on development and design next year, whilst filming The Lovely Bones. We even had a meeting planned with MGM executives to talk through our schedule.

However last week, Mark Ordesky called Ken and told him that New Line would no longer be requiring our services on the Hobbit and the LOTR 'prequel'. This was a courtesy call to let us know that the studio was now actively looking to hire another filmmaker for both projects.

Ordesky said that New Line has a limited time option on the film rights they have obtained from Saul Zaentz (this has never been conveyed to us before), and because we won't discuss making the movies until the lawsuit is resolved, the studio is going to have to hire another director.

Given that New Line are committed to this course of action, we felt at the very least, we owed you, the fans, a straightforward account of events as they have unfolded for us.

Read the rest at TheOneRing.

 

Well, that blows. I hope New Line realizes what a dumb idea that is.

 

Yeh thats a big mistake. Atleast the movie might still go ahead but without any magic from Jackson.

 

Yeah, but maybe they'll find another star director... or maybe it'll just blow.

 

Well I think it's for the good. In retrospect, the movies sucked pretty badly. Apart from the cool special effects and nice sets, there was not much else to the movie. Several characters from the book were misportrayed, and the whole thing just seemed much wimpyer than in the book. I don't know if another director can fix these problems, but I sure hope so.

 

Someone who agrees! Yay!

 

Awww....

And you two heretics, convert! Lord of the Rings was an almost impossible book to turn into a movie and yet, Peter Jackson did it, what more could you possibly ask?
Say even *one* director who could have made LotR better (without making every movie 5 hours long)!
Who? Uwe Boll?

 

Or alternatively, they were three of the greatest movies ever!

 

I wholeheartedly agree with Bahir the red, that's exactly how I felt about these movies.

 

With that budget? Me. Maybe.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure there is some director out there who can do it better.

Actually, now that I think about it, there is another LotR movie, a cartoon, that I watched a lot as a kid, which I think is a lot better than the modern version. I think I still have it on a VHS tape. The only problem with it was that they only made the first half of the story. I wish they would have made all of it, and perhaps have included more of what happened in the book in the film. Anyway, great movie, I loved how they made it; rotoscoped. Made it seem so real.

Here is a link to the imdb page for it: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077869/

 

Jackson was never going to be able to fit in every part of the books and portray every character exactly how Tolkien would have wanted. Not only because it would be impossible production wise but it would have made the films much longer and probably boring. You can get away with that in a book but not on film, the vast majority of the general public love the films, its only die hard Tolkien fans that notice inaccuracies and if the aim is to make as much money as possible which market are you going to focus more on? The books will always be there, the films are just a less hardcore interpretation of an excellent story, something you should just lie back and enjoy not nit pick with a fine comb.