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Peter Jackson Will Not Be Making The Hobbit
An anonymous reader writes "Due to legal wranglings with New Line Cinema over accounting issues for Lord Of The Rings, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will not be involved in the making of either The Hobbit or the planned Lord of the Rings prequel." I suppose there is still a chance that Jackson & Co. could end up involved, but at this point that looks unlikely.
Apparently they are.
Peter Jackson says:
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
"A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative takes place before that of a preexisting work or a sequel."
The Hobbit is and never was considered a prequel.. It was simply a book written prior to the triology.. But I will agree that a prequel written at this day and age, would be absolutely horrible..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
I was actually going to post my thoughts, but since this article is slashdotted, and I still have the window open, i'll post my thoughts + the article text below them, for anyone who missed the article due to /.ing
...Obviously there are two sides to every story, but he really digs into some of the gritty details (naming names, etc), and the story he tells sounds like typical hollywood modus operandi to me. He is rather scant on details regarding the "accounting" irregularities, but nontheless he still vents pretty heavily in other regards.
WOW. Let me say, respect to Peter Jackson for telling it as he sees it.
I am a filmmaker myself, and have to deal with a variety of industry business annoyances on a daily basis, and I can sympathize with his frustration. This is an industry predicated upon many absurd practices. My assumption is that Peter Jackson must be pretty ticked off to be willing to vent in public like this.
Unfortunately for him, last we heard, he's hit a snag with HALO as well. Although general slashdot community concensus seemed to be "oh gawd, not another video game movie," so perhaps that snag is a bit less depressing than The Hobbit troubles.
11-19-06 Latest News
Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh Talk THE HOBBIT
Xoanon @ 10:32 pm EST
Moments ago we received this email from Peter Jackson and his crew down in New Zealand, take a look...
Dear One Ringers,
As you know, there's been a lot of speculation about The Hobbit. We are often asked about when or if this film will ever be made. We have always responded that we would be very interested in making the film - if it were offered to us to make.
You may also be aware that Wingnut Films has bought a lawsuit against New Line, which resulted from an audit we undertook on part of the income of The Fellowship of the Ring. Our attitude with the lawsuit has always been that since it's largely based on differences of opinion about certain accounting practices, we would like an independent body - whether it be a judge, a jury, or a mediator, to look at the issues and make an unbiased ruling. We are happy to accept whatever that ruling is. In our minds, it's not much more complex than that and that's exactly why film contracts include right-to-audit clauses.
However, we have always said that we do not want to discuss The Hobbit with New Line until the lawsuit over New Line's accounting practices is resolved. This is simple common sense - you cannot be in a relationship with a film studio, making a complex, expensive movie and dealing with all the pressures and responsibilities that come with the job, while an unresolved lawsuit exists.
We have also said that we do not want to tie settlement of the lawsuit to making a film of The Hobbit. In other words, we would have to agree to make The Hobbit as a condition of New Line settling our lawsuit. In our minds this is not the right reason to make a film and if a film of The Hobbit went ahead on this basis, it would be doomed. Deciding to make a movie should come from the heart - it's not a matter of business convenience. When you agree to make a film, you're taking on a massive commitment and you need to be driven by an absolute passion to want to get the story on screen. It's that passion, and passion alone, that gives the movie its imagination and heart. To us it is not a cold-blooded business decision.
A couple of months ago there was a flurry of Hobbit news in the media. MGM, who own a portion of the film rights in The Hobbit, publicly stated they wanted to make the film with us. It was a little weird at the time because nobody from New Line had ever spoken to us about making a film of The Hobbit and the media had some fun with that. Within a week or two of those stories, our Manager Ken Kamins got a call from the co-president of New Line Cinema, Michael Lynne, who in essence told Ken that the way to se
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Ahem.
b cf65578fe57/index.html
http://mirrordot.org/stories/110120dd1cb460ef4010
Especially useful seeing the article is all on the one page.
the Aragorn/Arwen relationship is mentioned in Unfinished Tales
The Scouring of the Shire was filmed, but didn't make the final cut. Christopher Lee was pissed because that cut halved his screen time.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
To be fair, according to TFA, it is Peter Jackson who has committed himself to not enter a relationship about The Hobbit until the lawsuit is resolved. As resolving the lawsuit to PJ's satisfaction would probably require changing the voodoo accounting practices so prevalent in the industry, effecting their bottom line forever, New Line is right to take it seriously. In an industry where Forest Gump grossed about 700 million dollars yet "didn't make any money", any challenge to crooked accounting practices is dead serious and must be swept under the rug.
Of course, they're idiots for not flying out a team of negotiators, accountants, and bikini-clad "sweeteners" to make it work with Peter Jackson, but they decided to play hardball instead. That's Hollywood.
The ______ Agenda
The proper plural of medium is media. Duh.
The Hobbit is a small part of the prequel. Read The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales of Middle Earth, and the 10 histories of Middle Earth. The Silmarillion is the LOTR bible.
Nearly everything Tolkien wrote is prequel to LOTR.
None of the other books besides Hobbit are remotely filmable. They're mostly short stories or summaries of longer stories for which you'd have to write a lot of your own material to make a film.
If you had a talented writer, Tolkien left many, many fascinating stories about the Elves and early Men which could make good movies. I'm afraid I don't really consider Walsh/Boyens/Jackson in that category. As much as I enjoyed their movies, they got weaker whenever they deviated from Tolkien's story or interpolated scenes he didn't write. They were better at visualizing his world than at fleshing out his (admittedly weak) characters.
Tolkien left enough material for you to keep the franchise going longer than Bond. They probably shouldn't, mind you, but once you geared up that whole movie-making machine for Hobbit, it wouldn't hurt to make another movie or two with it.
The scouring of the shire is the one scene from the book that I was really disappointed me for being omitted. I think it really adds to the story, showing that evil can reach anywhere in the world, even the shire. It also showed how much the four hobbits grew in terms of character and bravery during the story.
I got nothin'
I think this is the email address for the noob that made the call at New Line Mark.Ordesky@newline.com
I couldn't agree more. The scouring of the Shire was one of the most important things in the book. In the classical tradition of epic the journey home is an essential part. In the Odyssey and the Aeneid the troubles experienced by the heroes on their arrival are very important parts of the story.
I was most disappointed that the scouring wasn't even in the extended edition because it has been hinted at in the Two Towers. Instead we were left with a derivative Hollywood ending with 1/2 hour of hugging.
The whole point of the scouring is that Frodo isn't regarded as a hero in the Shire even though he saved Middle Earth. The hobbits had their own problems and weren't interested in hearing about difficult to understand adventures on the other side of the world. Merry and Pippin fought in a war though and when they came back they saved the Shire.
It's removing the ending which was the point to the story in the first place. It's what completes the explanation of hobbits as characters.
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
No, the Scouring of the Shire was not filmed at all (apart from the few scenes Frodo sees in the Mirror of Galadriel). Christopher Lee was pissed because in the regular release (i.e. non-Extended Edition on DVD) all of his already little screen time was cut, which covered Grima murdering Saruman in Isengard when the Fellowship (or what's left of it) visit him after the Ents attacked.
http://www.glyphweb.com/Arda/returnoftheking.html
And which parallel universe did you crawl out of?
There are a large number of other Prequels to the LoTR. After writing the hobbit as a bed time story for his kids, he went and wrote the Silmarillian, history of the elves evil before Sauron and how the Orcs came to be. This is basically a history book on the world of middle earth. They make references it in LOTR actually, but they are subtle and unless you've read it you wouldn't catch them. There's also the Unfinished stories mostly about the First Men, and theres the lost stories expansions on stories in the silmarillian and unfinished stories. They could be really interestings.
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." - Voltaire
The orcs are referred to as Goblins
There are Goblins in the Mines of Moria as well, which is a LoTR event. I'm not sure they are actually the same creature, as the Wiki suggests.