Film festival that launched The Lord of the Rings movies fetes Jackson with a special award of recognition.
Elijah Wood was on hand in France this week to present Peter Jackson with the prestigious Palme d’Or from the Cannes film festival, 25 years after the world-altering preview of LOTR films debuted there.
“Warner Bros. was being sold… The media was talking about the gamble was going to fail. So the first film, ‘Fellowship of the Ring,’ was going to come out in December 2001 and so we just finished shooting in December 2000… Bob Shaye decides that he wants to have 20 minutes of our film screen here in Cannes because he wants to change the press’ stories that were going out … Bob Shaye rolled the dice, and so we quickly changed 20 minutes of film, really fast, and we brought that 20 minutes here in 2001 in May, and we did some press in that castle up on the hill and had a party there, and Bob’s great gamble really changed the perception of the film. And for me obviously, it was a life-changing thing. So by the time the film came out there was an anticipation that there wouldn’t have been if not for Cannes.”
In a separate 1-on-1 conversation with Jackson, he talks broadly about many topics. Many press people were seated at the back of the auditorium filming with phones, so quality is a bit wonky.
On The Hunt for Gollum movie
Peter Jackson explains at #Cannes why he is not directing "The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum':
"The film is about Gollum's psychological and addiction. I thought Andy knows this guy better than anybody. So I actually I didn't think much of me [directing the new movie.… pic.twitter.com/eNbmQuQ54d
“The film is about Gollum’s psychological and addiction. I thought Andy knows this guy better than anybody. So I actually I didn’t think much of me [directing the new movie. I thought the most exciting version of this movie is if Andy Serkis makes it.”
“I don’t dislike it at all. I mean, to me, it’s just a special effect.” Further, he talks about how Andy Serkis playing Gollum may not win any acting awards because of all the discourse around AI. “It’s not an AI-generated performance, it’s a human-generated performance, so it’s sort of unfair that he wouldn’t get it.”
Variety as more complete write up of Peter Jackson’s comments on A.I. including a fair perspective of likeness rights. “If you’re doing an AI duplicate of somebody, like Indiana Jones or anyone else, as long as you’ve licensed the rights off the person who you’re showing, I don’t see the issue. It’s when people’s likenesses get stolen and usurped.”
Separately, while attending Cannes, actress Cate Blanchett has announced a non-profit consortium called RSL Media to create a legal framework in managing the AI likeness rights of all actors. There is also another EU group trying to do the same called HPF Human Providence in Film.
Peter Jackson got permission from Christopher Lee’s estate to use old outtakes for the recent War of the Rohirrim, and his Weta Digital worked with Ian Holm’s estate to bring his ALIEN character back using CGI models from The Hobbit movies.
On The Adventures of TinTin sequel
Peter Jackson reveals at #Cannes that he is working on a new "Adventures of Tintin" movie.
He's currently writing the script and plans to direct the movie himself. He was working on the screenplay while attending the festival. pic.twitter.com/mZx805loib
Jackson talks about disappointing Steven Spielberg by not making a movie for 15 years. But he’s writing now as we speak with intent to direct. The first TinTin is a fully animated film and is regarded as a modern classic. The sequel is one of the most long-anticipated movies in the industry.
