December 19, 2005 – The Hobbit still faces legal hurdles before Jackson can make the missing film in the Lord of the Rings saga. However, there’s still a chance we’ll get to see Bilbo’s first journey in a few years’ time. Peter Jackson explained the Hobbit situation to the media during the King Kong premiere gala: “MGM used to own The Hobbit and then MGM got bought by Sony a few months ago, and so now Sony have the rights — or half of The Hobbit rights, and New Line have the other half. Now, New Line and Sony have to talk to each other and I don’t think that anyone’s going to call me until those rights issues are resolved. That’s entirely between them, so…” [More]
Category: Peter Jackson
Gandalf writes: Shine grabbed an Air NZ complimentary magazine on the way to the Wellington red carpet event containing this article on Peter Jackson. Some great little snippets in there and well worth a read! [More]
decoder writes: ABC Australia aired a fantastic interview with Peter Jackson tonight. You can read the transcript and view the interview on the website. ‘David Stratton interviews director Peter Jackson about his varied and exciting filmmaking career from BAD TASTE to KING KONG.’ [More]
Pungolo writes: Hey Xoanon! Today I had a good chat with Mr. Alan Lee, who was presenting his new book here in Milan! We spoke mainly about Kong, but he said some interesting things about LOTR too (even if we are going to publish a report of a conference he gave after our interview, in which he showed a lot of interesting material – we’ll send you the photos for TORN). [More]
Andy “Gollum” Serkis got a little too close to the apes to channel King Kong. King Kong’s return, 72 years after his introduction in the original classic, is the year’s best more-than-mortal comeback since Batman Begins. And the giant ape owes it to his alter ego, Andy Serkis. Serkis can do it all, from balding mystical runt to huge, hairy anthropoid in a blink of the camera’s eye. He was the heart and soul of creepy Gollum, the defrocked hobbit in The Lord of the Rings. Now he’s Hollywood’s go-to guy for iconic gorillas in our midst. [More]
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa has bumped a New Zealand art exhibition aside to make way for a money-spinning Lord of the Rings repeat, in a deal secured with a highly unusual payment. Filmmaker and aviation enthusiast Peter Jackson agreed to a second six-month exhibition on the condition the museum located and bought for him a vintage Sopwith Camel airplane engine. Te Papa spokesman Peter Brewer said a deal on an engine found somewhere in the northern hemisphere should be settled by Christmas. The engine cost “a fraction of the amount” the museum would otherwise have had to pay Jackson in licensing fees, he said. It is understood Te Papa paid trilogy backers New Line Cinemas up to $500,000 for the first Rings’ exhibition in 2003. The studio had since signed over the licensing rights to Jackson. [More]