Peter Jackson Hints At The Hobbit

Hellboy0101 writes "News.com.au is reporting that New Line Cinema is currently in talks to purchase the rights to the film adaptation of The Hobbit. There are apparently some difficulties with getting the go ahead from Tolkien's son Christopher, who is executor of the estate. When asked if New Line has approached him about the project, Jackson said he has not ruled it out, but not until after King Kong is done. 'New Line, which spent $US300million ($415 million) making the films, is already planning to continue its Rings success with an adaptation of Tolkien's novel The Hobbit. More difficulties with the Tolkien estate were looming, said Jackson, who added that he would be keen to get involved after he finishes remaking King Kong in 2006. "New Line haven't actually talked to me about The Hobbit. I know there's difficulty about the rights, certainly if they want to talk to me about it I'd be keen," he said.'"

Comments

My personal opinion

[Penguinshit]

I've read everything Tolkien many times over. While I didn't feel the Jackson movies were completely honest to the books, I can understand his explanation regarding pacing and whatnot as it applies to the visual medium.

I really enjoyed the first two of the Trilogy, and am very much looking forward to the third.

If Jackson wants to take on The Hobbit, I'd be very interested in seeing the resulting work.

LOTR actors

[Xpilot]

I wonder if they can all get Ian Holme, Ian McKellen, Hugo Weaving and Andy Serkis to reprise their roles as Bilbo, Gandalf, Agent Elrond and Gollum. It would be cool if it were kept consistant with LOTR.

Re:LOTR actors

[mclove]

I think Ian Holm might be a little too old... I mean yes, they *could* make him look younger with makeup (as they did for the flashback in FotR), but the man's 72 and pulling that look off for the entire movie would be rather difficult. PJ doesn't seem like the sort of director who'd jump through hoops for the sake of preserving a tiny bit of extra consistency with the trilogy.

Andy Serkis, on the other hand... I can't imagine anyone else playing Gollum now. And just think of it, a crowded theater sometime in the winter of 2009, Bilbo in a cave, then a familiar CGI face and the first whisper of "Precious"... think of the beginning of the opening crawl for Episode 1 (when we didn't know how badly it would suck) and multiply it by 10 and that's what you'll get.

And of course we have to have Ian McKellen playing Gandalf too, simply because he loves doing it and there's no one better out there for the role.

Re:For the Community

[redink1]

I have my doubts that a statue and a museum devoted to the props from a single movie, no matter how popular that movie was at the time it was released, could be that much of a draw.

I would be forced to agree with you with nearly any movie (or series of movies) such as The Matrix, Star Wars, Titanic, and what not... but not The Lord of the Rings.

If you happened to catch the extra features on the Extended Edition of The Fellowship of the Ring (and to a lesser extent The Two Towers), you'd see that they made literally tens of thousands of swords, pieces of armor, costumes, helmets, everything. Heck, every dang mug from the Prancing Pony was custom made.

And then there are the Uber Cool 'Bigatures', like the two towers, the Black Gate, and others, not to mention the various sculptures of Gollum and Treebeard.

Weta Workshop's work is utterly amazing, and if I had any reason to go near New Zealand or Australia, I'd definately stop at that museum.

Re:Please, no hobbit!

[dandelion_wine]

All fine and well to play devil's advocate, especially when it makes the other guy seem narrow-minded.

But speaking from personal experience, if I ever had a mental image of the Kwisatz Haderach, it's long since morphed into Kyle MacLachlan. And I must have read LOTR... (lets not exaggerate here...) say 20 times. I'm positive I had a mental image of Frodo. What was it? I have no idea.

Is it really all that earth-shattering to admit that movies tend to burn an image into one's mind in a way that overpowers the changeable visions of the imagination? (that being said, I don't know how many times -- always a surprise -- in the past month I've thought I saw something on tv or in a movie and realized that I read it and the mental image is so strong I could swear I saw it somewhere till I remembered the source. That, however, does not diminish the argument that an external visual representation of the same thing couldn't extinguish that mental image)

Personally, I'd like to see P.Jackson's version for the sake of consistency of vision, not because I'm mentally lazy (though I am most assuredly that, paraphrased the man, er, Dude). That and to prevent Bakshi from wreaking more ruin.

just saw Return of the King

[keshet]

..at a screening for reviewers (my mother is a reviewer) in NYC
No spoilers:
- Well another great chapter awaits!
- The battle scenes are stupendous, quite exhausting
- It is *long* (we didn't get an intermission)
- There are a couple of Monty Python-like lines which although not intentional drew some laughs
- The end is kind of soppy (well what did you expect)
- Towards the end it felt like Spielburg was on the job, squeezing out every last ounce of emotion
- Gandalf for president!