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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.
I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you. I mean who ever heard of a movie studio cheating someone out of their money? Really, it goes to show you, it doesn't matter who you are, the movie studio will try anything to keep their money.
Like the RIAA's accounting, movie studio accounting is even more devious. Whenever someone tries to get paid a "part of the profits" for which they deserve, the studios always pull the "but according to our estimates, we didn't make money on that film." That's why there will never be a Forrest Gump sequel. The author, Winston Groom, was supposed to get a part of the profits. But according to Paramount, Forrest Gump didn't make any profits despite its $600+ million in sales. So he refuses to let the sequel become a movie.
Another example is the dispute between Art Buchwald and Paramount. Buchwald pitched a script to Paramount about a movie in which Eddie Murphy playing an African king comes to America to look for a bride. After some development with director John Landis, it was abandoned. Paramount later produced a movie called Coming to America about an African prince played by Eddie Murphy that comes to America to find a bride. John Landis directed the movie. But according to Paramount, they were different movies completely. When Buchwald won his lawsuit, Paramount then argued the movie that though it had $350 million in sales, it made no profit according to their accounting. The court found their accounting "unconscionable". Rather than have the court delve into their accounting practices in detail, Paramount settled.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
You know, I've never understood all the Silmarillion-bashing. Call me a drooling fanboy, but I enjoyed the Silmarillion far more than the Hobbit, and about as much as LOTR. Tolkien captured the feel and pace of the medieval literature he studied and loved all his life. If you are at all familiar with the Norse sagas, or with a lot of the original Arthurian literature (as opposed to the pap novels put out in the past 50 years), or with Spenser and Chaucer and Beowulf and Sturluson, The Silmarillion conveys their flavor with remarkable authenticity, and adds some theological, philosophical and moral depth. Reading some of Tolkien's predecessors in fantasy (E. R. Eddison, George Macdonald, William Morris, even H. Rider Haggard to some degree), you can also see where he learned some of his stylistic habits; Morris's style is echoed especially. The style is archaic, certainly, and that could make it difficult for a modern reader, but that is not a flaw per se. It's an aesthetic choice that has its own cadences and beauties.
Attempting to read the work as a modern novel will not serve the reader well. If people go into it expecting a genre fantasy novel, they are bound to be disappointed. But it is a tremendous and unique accomplishment in fantasy. Read it with an eye to its place in the fantastic tradition, and with an understanding that you are not reading a novel, but a chronological and cosmological saga (in the old, strict literary sense, not the back-of-the-paperback-blurb sense), and its power and creativity are breathtaking.
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
I intend to boycott any Hobbit movie altogether (please read on, slashdotters).
I've said this several times on Digg, but always get the thumbs down from the largely adolescent juvenile crowd. The Hobbit, unlike LOTR, has a much more rhythmic momentum, and each chapter in and of itself, has an up and down cycle to it (it is a children's book after all). Am I the only one who thinks that the Hobbit would be much better served as a 21 episode mini-series? Think Sopranos, Band of Brothers, etc. Each chapter becomes an episode. Much of the storyline would therefore remain intact (a lot more happens in 302 pages of the Hobbit than the 900-or so pages of LOTR), and the original flow would be better observed.
When its all done, release a $119 nine disc DVD set. Sell 1 DVD set for every 12 people who would have gone to the movie, and you're already making serious money. Throw in advertising for the 21 episodes, and you've got a goldmine. Seriously, why isn't anyone pitching this? Haven't LOST, The West Wing, and these other dramas shown that the mini-series format is what people are now looking for in movies (big sweeping story arcs with smaller plots along the way)? Am I crazy? Please, somebody give me some honest feedback on this. Thanks!