More Jackson - New Line - Hobbit News
Constance Ash January 11th, 2007
[ ... today the dispute reached breaking point, with Mr Shaye telling the Sci-Fi Wire: "He's got a quarter of a billion dollars paid to him so far, justifiably, according to contract, completely right."And this guy... turns around without wanting to have a discussion with us and sues us and refused to discuss it unless we just give in to his plan.
"I don't want to work with that guy any more. Why would I? So the answer is he will never make any movie with New Line Cinema again while I'm still working at the company." ]
Love, C.
What interested me was the assertion (by Jackson) that the studio
Unless I misread this, or Jackson misspoke, it sounds like the prequel and the Hobbit movie are distinct projects. Not sure how I feel about this, but it could produce something interesting (e.g. mining the appendices and “the History of Middle Earth” for stories that lead up to LOTR).
He made them unfathomable amounts of money and they don’t want to work with him anymore? Brilliant. I’m fairly certain Mr. Jackson won’t end up on the side of the road with a “Will direct for food” sign in his hand.
They’re posturing, and look likely to soon get fired.
The accountants will very quickly be bringing the corporate higher ups up to speed on how much they’ll make by caving to Jackson and how much they won’t make by holding out. Anything will be worth one or two guaranteed hits.
As I understand, one movie is The Hobbit and the other is “What Strider was doing before LOTR” started, which was mentioned in some of Tolkien’s other writings. Bankable and bankable.
What I’m most surprised about is that they didn’t rush to get the movies started earlier.
I am not in the least privy to which decisions or why, but wasn’t Jackson sick unto death of LOTR after devoting his entire life to it for so long? He wanted to do something different and couldn’t wait to get to Kong (which, as souless as his Kong is, also contains certain sly refs to this via the movie-movie characters in that movie).
Also — Mortonson had other film commitments, and most likely still does. Though, by accounts on the Spanish boards, the Spanish audience didn’t much like Alatriste, I’m dying to see it; each film he’s been in since LOTR, he’s been so good.
Jackson will never lack for projects. Shoot, among his options is that he’s taken out on Novik’s Tereraire.
There’s this though: going through all the extras on the extended dvd of Jackson’s Kong, it’s clear how much money and time he wasted, treating the project like his personal rec room, building entire sets and figures upon all the specs of the original to shoot — for fun — a lost / cut scene from Cooper’s Kong. Entire crews, budgets lines, etc. were devoted to what wasn’t even planned to go into the movie. They did this instead of generating soul and passion.
Love, C.