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Peter Jackson Says "Hobbit" Movie In The Works
Patik writes "'Lord of the Rings' Director Peter Jackson is planning to film 'The Hobbit,' according to this Associated Press article. Jackson, who is currently filming 'King Kong', is waiting for New Line and MGM, the two studios with rights to the film, to battle it out for rights to make the prequel. Jackson also mentions wanting the movie to feel just like the LOTR trilogy, including having Ian McKellen return as Gandalf." (This is better than just hinting.)
Seriously, Jackson has set a huge standard for himself here. He has the three movies that progressively got better, ending in a movie that won 11 awards. People's expectations will be high (cough*EpisodeOne*cough) and if he doesn't deliver, it won't matter how good of a movie it is, he's going to get ripped a new one.
Casting Ian Holm in the main role wouldn't be such an effort, or would it? Ian Holm is 73 fer christs sake! .... hmm actually thats quite young for a hobbit
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Maybe... But having Rhys-Davies playing Gloin (Gimli's father) would be delicios and much more feasible...
that Ian McKellen wants to do it. Or Ian Holm if he is the desired Bilbo.
The problem, as I see it, is that there will be a lot of pressure to make this movie bigger and better than then the previous three. But it shouldn't be: The Hobbit is a smaller story in every sense. Trying to "out do" LOTR with it's story would destroy it completely - it is a really just one small adventure in a very big world.
Don't get me wrong, it is a great story, and if done right it could be a great movie, but if it made along the lines of "Now we have better computers and can have ten times more people at the final battle" then that would destroy it (and the continuity).
In that sense, I think trying to make something out of the stories in The Silmarrilion would be better (those battles really were bigger) - but obviously brining that to the screen would involve basically filling a story around the history told in the book. And I doubt the movie rights were ever sold, or that Christoffer Tolkien would not.
Once I saw the flashback scene in LoTR: FOTR, I knew Jackson should of started with the Hobbit first and I remember him saying from the start that he wouldn't do it either, even as fans asked him to. I mean it completely sets up the events in LoTR and introduced some of the main characters to us, it couldn't be been perfect as a taster of things to come. Of course, Jackson has changed his mind and done a complete U turn on this and will now do it. I hate films that do prequels second. I hope it doesn't end up like Enterprise with it destroying continuity and not feeling the same as the rest in the franchise.
Jonathanjk.com
That fact that you noticed only a few out of many hundreds of CG enhancements show just how good a job Weta did.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Fairy tales are the centre of quite a lot of literary study, for there's often much more depth than there seems to be on the surface. Certainly, one of my favourite novels and films, The Last Unicorn, is clearly a fairy tale while also being a great piece of literature.
No, I'd say that The Hobbit is very much a fairy tale; and very much literary, as well. The two are not exclusive.
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> The Hobbit was a children's book and not a very good one IMO.
IMO, The Hobbit holds up better as a story than LoTR did.
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Can you ever get a perfect Gollum? He didn't exist in the first place; everybody that has read the book have their own mental picture of the creature.
:p
As for the CG effect.. Tolkien maybe meant him to be a sketchy character..
Though I have to agree that there should never be a Silmarillion movie. The information density in The Silmarillion is much, much higher compared to LotR. If The Silmarillion had been written in the same style as LotR, it would probably be many thousands of pages long. There's no way that can be transformed into a watchable movie.
Should Peter Jackson really feel the need to make more Tolkien movies even after The Hobbit, I think he should look at the tale of Beren and Luthien (one of the more independent chapters from The Silmarillion, and not as complex as the rest of the book).
To be honest, I was bored sitting through RoTK, the second one didn't get me giddy either, the first one did but I'm sick of that as well. RoTK shouldn't of won the amount of oscars it did and at the end of it, I'm glad I don't have the DVD's. But was it worth it after all this time, no. I'm sick of LoTR now.
Jonathanjk.com
Yeah, my sentiments exactly. I think that the complexities of the trilogy showed Jackson as a master administrator -- it's amazing that a project of such scope didn't fall apart as the Matrix sequels did -- but I agree that portions seemed too overblown.
In some movies you get the idea that the characters are secondary to the plot and the visual. FOTR showed many sides to the characters but these tend to be missing in the latter films. Not that they weren't there, only that the battle was bigger. It felt as if I was watching "Starship Troopers" with a change of scenery. Now don't me wrong -- I enjoyed "Starship Troopers" -- but it was definitely built on the idea that the individuals were almost irrelevant compared to the campaign.
To give credit where it's due, Jackson does handle most of the lecture scenes very well. I enjoyed Aragorn's ("..but not this day") and Gandalf's speeches. They could have easily become sappy but they remained poignant and powerful. He's also captured the grandeur of the book.
But to end, I do think that LOTR deserved at least four Oscars (director, though maybe not best picture).
I disagree. It's pretty well known that that's how fellowship started out. You can tell by the second half of the book it gets alot darker, but in the beginning it's very lighthearted just like the hobbit. And didn't Tolkein start writing it before he saw all the things he saw in WWI? That could explain the change...
Ah, so torn - you loved Fight Club, yet hated Starship Troopers!
I know ST was a violent affront to the book, but I tend to view it thus: it was so different it was really not an adaptation at all. I mean, in the book they barely even fight any bugs. As a schlock sci-fi movie with a ridiculous budget, ST has got to be one of the most entertaining movies I've seen, however - kinda like From Dusk Till Dawn in space.
Speaking of Fight Club, am I insane? Why do so many people hate/dislike this movie? It *is* startlingly great, right? And as an adaptation of a book, it couldn't be better done. As the author said, he felt slightly foolish after he saw how good the movie was, he felt the book didn't do it justice.
Read Pynchon.
Well... Ian Holm is no spring chicken, but they did a good job in Fellowship by taping back his jowls and putting a wig on him. I'd much rather see him reprise his role as Bilbo rather than see another actor try to take his place.
In any case, this is fantastic news!
Does anything in the article ever say a movie is in the works except for a presumptuous title and some anon AP writer? No.
It says two film studios have conflicting rights and are battling to see whose rights take precedence.
It says "if he were going to direct the movie" he would this... "I'd want Ian McKellen"... more *IF* statements.
Of course the studios want the movie made. Prequal to an 11 Oscars film? $$$
What the article basicly says is that there *isn't* a movie in the works. If it were in the works, and Peter Jackson was to direct it, he'd "like" this done this way or that way....
I saw absolutely no quotes where he said anything about something being "done".
This has offered no new information and just regurgitated wants and hopes and I resent being so happily drawn here by the RSS feed I saw it on.
Sleet
Gollum may not have been perfect but one could guess that technology will be better when they actually start working on 'The Hobbit'. Maybe 3-4 years of perfecting and refining the process and better technology will aid the production of 'The Hobbit'.
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
- the character acting/development: maybe not bad, but the actors weren't given much to work with at times
:-)
- the script to the last movie: too scattered, trying to cram everything in without ever really coming together neatly in a form palatable for a movie
- the pacing: considering what was cut, there were some ridiculously ponderous bits and other parts where whole swathes of the book were glossed over in a couple of seconds
- the feeling that, by the end, Jackson is just telling someone elses story rather than presenting us with a piece of work in its own right. This combined with decisions to reduce Saruman's role and symbolism hurt the broader themes of the trilogy for me.
I'll wait for the Extended Edition and its 40 extra minutes before saying anything about ROTK. The EE's for the former parts were excellent IMHO and often added "calmer" scenes when there was much action in the movies, to balance things.
I think the Theatre Editions are mostly just unfortunate side effects of giving the audience (and the movie company) something easier to swallow and not how PJ truly intended the movies to be watched... The TE's are there to satisfy as many as possible, the EE's are there to satisfy fans like you and me who enter discussions at Slashdot with movie analyses.
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I know that traditionally, the theatrical version has been the 'definitive' one, and that DVD extras have been add-ons thrown in quickly to make up the weight. However, despite PJ's comments a few months ago, IMO the definitive versions of LOTR are really the extended DVD editions. They have better pacing, a more coherent plotline, lots of telling details -- in short, the story is given more room to breathe, and works all the better for it.
So please don't judge ROTK until you've seen the EE. If the first two are anything to go by, I suspect we'll see a lot more character development (hopefully involving Denethor's corruption, and Faramir's and Eowyn's recoveries, and maybe more of Aragorn, as well as Saruman's closure), better explanation and progression of the plot, better pacing, and more balance in the grand themes and symbolism. Calling the theatrical versions 'edited highlights' would be unfair, but perhaps it wouldn't be that far from the truth. It's amazing what PJ managed to pack into each 3-hour slot; but the EEs are more amazing still.
Of course, even the EE won't be perfect. There are still flaws, awkward issues and disappointments. But despite those, I think LOTR is a magnificent achievement, wonderful to watch and better than we had any right to hope for.
BTW, I wonder if his may be the start of a deep change in the industry, where what you see in the cinema is no longer seen as the most important part of moviemaking, and where DVD &c editions may come to take on equal or greater importance overall.
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My opinion is that yes, the LOTR movies really were that good. In the context of highly anticipated trilogies such as LOTR, Matrix, or the SW Prequels, much of a viewer's impression of the movie is based on the hype. How can it not be, when our entire society is oversaturated with tie-in crap? That being said, take a step back from the films and pretend that you have never heard of LOTR before seeing them, and look at them objectively as book adaptations. On that score, they succeeded.
The sheer amount of technical work that went into the movies to create a completely believable world is mind-boggling. A great deal of skill also went into turning a dense, rambling, laboring, symbolist epic into a screen adaptation without losing any of its power, grace, or richness. Jackson struck exactly the right chord with most audiences: his version was easy to follow by people who didn't know the books, yet so chock-full of information as to satisfy even the most die-hard fans of the books.
No movie will ever live up to hype. Ever. Our minds can create expectations that will never be exceeded by the director. Where a movie succeeds despite the hype is how it seems later, when the roar has died down. Rewatching the LOTR films, I get more out of them every time. I pick up on more subtle plot points. I see character relationships I didn't notice before. I see small details. The picture gains depth.
Contrast this rewatching with something like The Matrix trilogy, or the Star Wars Prequels. Every time I rewatch Episodes I and II, I cringe. They are worse with every viewing, far removed from the gee-whiz special effects hype. The original Matrix movie holds up well, but that was back when the Wachowskis were trying to prove themselves. Reloaded still seems ok, although the mythology is a little cheapened, and the pacing is plodding. I don't like rewatching Revolutions at all, because it's far too over-the-top. There's no substance.
Do the LOTR movies stand as a work on their own? Well, yes and no. On the one hand, they can't be considered their own work: they are an adaptation of another work. But on the other hand, they are well executed and digestable by people who have not read the books.
*Disclaimer: I refuse to comment on whether or not Return of the King deserved best picture, either by its own right or as a proxy for the entire trilogy. The five movies nominated were so totally and utterly diverse that comparing them to each other would be a waste of time. There was no "single winner" in that category this year.
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(Of course, there were suspicious circumstances attached to it: Gollum's extreme possessiveness; its magical nature; Bilbo hiding it and then lying about its origin. Gandalf was suspicious of it from the first; in the film, maybe a few telling glances from him could speak volumes.)
That's often the nature of evil; it's deceptive and can appear perfectly innocent at first. (I know Tolkien didn't intend any direct allegories in his work, but occasional resonances like that do happen.)
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Well, if he had declined to "take an axe to it" it might not have ever been made so I think most of the world (that cares) is ok with his interpretation of the books. I can only imagine that if he had tried to film them in some sort of all encompassing way we might have just seen the third film come out and be waiting for the fourth and fifth to wrap it up.
The Hobbit is a tighter piece of work. I can't see him having any trouble doing a nice fitting and relatively complete version of it. The Dwarves are IMO more comic relief in The Hobbit so if anything he'll probably have to pull that in some just to be in line with what he's done to Gimli in LOTR.
That (Dwarf jokes) is maybe the one thing I didn't much care for. Not that I can't appreciate a good "let's laugh at the short guy" joke. I just didn't think that LOTR needed comic relief added to it. That's just me though.
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If they are gonna try to get the Ian's (Bilbo and Gandalf) they had best get a move on before something happens - they are neither getting any younger. The only other person who would need to return would be Hugo Weaving (Elrond), but I don't think he'd change too much over a couple years.
:)
Of course, Andy Serkis would need to reprise Gollum, but he should look about the same, even though time hasn't been good to him so far
I do wonder if they would want Ian Holm as Bilbo or not. While I think he did a great job in LotR, the filming of another movie where he is the main role may take quite a toll on him.
Also, I would think they would want to try to reuse The Shire set that they built before it gets overgrown with weeds. And there is also the Rivendell set which they should probably reuse.
As long as Wil Wheaton gets the part of Thranduil, i'll be happy.
Ok, moderately content.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
As I understand it, the Silmarillion and the other historical notes that Tolkien made were written as backstory for the LOTR trilogy. One of the reasons LOTR resonates so much with people is the fact that Tolkien put so much work into the creation of a world for this fantasy story to take place in. However, LOTR was the story that he wanted to tell, as a cautionary tale about the dangers of technology and the horrors of war. (He conceived the story in the trenches of WW I, exposed to all the horror of new technologies of warfare such as mustard gas and aerial bombardment.)
How does a project which is on hold for two or more years while the lawyers argue about rights and the director works on something else qualify as being "in the works"?
This is not news. It is well know that Jackson would like to direct the Hobbit when possible. He is not currently working on it.