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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 am confused - The Hobbit is the LOTR prequel - Are they doing two prequels?
"The Hobbit or the planned Lord of the Rings prequel"
Sorry?? The Hobbit *IS* the prequel to LOTR. Please tell they're not going
to get some Hollywood paint-by-numbers screenwriters commitee to butcher Tolkeins
ideas and come up with some Phantom Menace debarcle? Will they have Gollum with
dreadlocks and speaking in some fau-jamaican patois and Gandalf as some all-american
apple pie and freckles kid who Has Yet To Discover His Powers blah blah etc etc.
Gah!
.... WTF? What do you mean "The Hobbit or the planned Lord of the Rings prequel"? Aren't the two the same thing? Or is this an allusion to The Silmarillion? Alas, the article is slashed, so I can't find out!!!
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
Next up: Jim Henson's Hobbit Babies.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Lack of Jackson in hobbit will cost more than the gain you will make wrangling over the accounting issues.
Read radical news here
After I RTFA, it looks like they're trying to spank Jackson for calling them on their accounting practices. He wouldn't settle on their terms, so "his services will not be needed".
The guy made them a bleepin' 10^9 bucks with the trilogy, and they assume they can slot in any schmoe that can aim a camera? And I suppose they're too damn cheap to go back to WETA Digital for the FX too, they'll get some folks from over at Sci-Fi Channel and it'll be just fine.
At this point we can only hope the project collapses from being nickle-and-dimed to extinction.
Given the size of the book it was inveitable he'd have to emit large chunks of it to fit it into any reasonble time. As it was its , what , 9 hours for all 3 films? Personally I think it was a mistake to miss out the Tom Bombadil section in Fellowship but I guess if he'd left that in he'd have had to have cut out something else perhaps more crucial to the story. Who knows.
For all the negative comments towards Jackson's work on the trilogy, the fact that they somehow have the idea that a prequel and "the Hobbit" are two seperate things bodes very ill for the "It absolutely must be exactly like the book" nerds.
On the plus side, maybe some of us will appreciate Jackson more when we see how Hollywood botches these films. That or I'll eat my words.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
I was just re-reading bits of William Goldman's "Which Lie Did I Tell?", and there's a particularly interesting section, dealing with adaptations. And one of the first things he talks about is that, when adapting, you can't keep everything, sometimes, you barely keep anything, the trick being to, as he says, keep the "spine" of the story and reject anything that won't work on the screen, because books and movies ARE TWO DIFFERENT FUCKING MEDIUMS.
I, too have loved the LOTR books since I was a kid, and I too would have loved to have seen Bombadil in the movies, etc., but, let's be honest: Jackson & Co. made an absolutely amazing film trilogy, by ANY standard you care to measure, so can we fucking end shit like "hideous mess" already? It's not true, you know it's not true, so please just fucking leave it, alright? It makes you sound like you live in your mom's basement, and just annoys the rest of us.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Peter Jackson has amply demonstrated that his skills match up to Tolkien's complexity. There were others who tried LOTR and the Hobbit before, and made a mess of it. So if Peter Jackson is not involved with the Hobbit or a LOTR prequel, then Newline should save its money because I'm just not interested.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Gandalf the brown (named because of his cloak) will guide young Baggins in the way of the Foot in his quest against the evil dragon master. Along the way Bilbo becomes an expert at fighting with light staffs. Gollum is going to become very ashmatic and have a penchant for black outfits with funny helmets. The 13 dwarves, or dwarf army as they will be referred to dont really feature.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Way too much homo-eroticism going on between Sean Astin and Elijah Wood.
Ummm, have you READ the books? Did you manage to forget all of the "hand stroking"? If anything, Jackson toned it down.
It is also an interesting commentary on our society today. At the time, nobody saw this as homo-eroticism, guys were allowed to be friends and be close without being considered gay.
Finkployd
Given the hideous mess he made of LOTR, I'm relatively pleased that he won't be butchering The Hobbit in the same way.
:)
I hear it's Uwe Boll doing The Hobbit, so it definitely won't be butchered in the same way.
Man I hope they don't try to tackle that one... Its not a novel, but a book of history. To cover it properly one needs a three week mini-series run on the history channel. (Please? With sugar on top? I put up with a week of fictional bible history, give me my Tolkein...)
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
Now nothing stands in the way of the ideal Hollywood version, with Paris Hilton as Galadriel, Ben Affleck as Gandalf, Jack Black as Sam Gamgee, and Keanu Reeve as Frodo ("The ring... Whoa!")
Where were you when the voynix came?
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.
Of course, the irony here is that LotR may be just about readable as written text --- go on, how many people don't skim through most of The Two Towers? --- but it's absolutely unreadable as spoken prose. If your claim is that literary English isn't as beautiful as spoken English (or spoken Icelandic), it behooves you to write at least passable spoken English. Which he fails, utterly, to do. Try reading a few paragraphs aloud. Then read, say, Tyndale's translation of the New Testament aloud.
Hideous mess is your meaning, not a fact. I was very very pleased with the LOTR.. so while for you the article might be good news, for me it is bad. I'd have loved Peter Jackson to make the hobbit. I wonder if with 'accounting issue' they mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting Whenever someone brings up the argument that we're stealing from artists when we dload a movie or music, and we kill all music, I hum a little hollywood-accouting tune in my head.
How about not making the Hobbit at all? I loved the Lord Of The Rings movies, but for all the good in them, they ruined the books forever for me. When I read them now, I can't help but imagine Frodo being Elijah Wood and Gandalf being Ian McKellen. Every picture that had been formed in my mind by reading the books has been wiped over and replaced with Peter Jackson's vision, and that sucks.
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
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.
Given the size of the book it was inveitable he'd have to emit large chunks of it
Sorry, I don't mean to be a spelling nazi, but I just can't get over the mental image of Peter Jackson emitting large chunks of books. My day is ruined.
sudo ergo sum
The difference between The Hobbit and LoTR is that the former is primarily a kid's book.
Great, you have an opinion. I'm glad. Unfortunately, it's only that, so quit trying to force an objective standard on a subjective medium. If you enjoyed the LOTR movies, we're all happy for you. Some of us didn't. Some of us are of the opinion that Jackson changed the spine of the story when he changed characters, i.e. Faramir (shows his quality by taking the ring to Osgiliath, yeah right), Theoden (let's make him a pansy so Aragorn looks better), and even Frodo (in Return of the King he never distrusts Sam).
Some of us are of the opinion that the first movie was actually great and Tom Bombadil did need to be cut out. Some of us enjoyed parts of the movies, but overall were upset by the changes we thought were unneccessary.
But in any case, it's our opinion, you have yours, and there's no need to use uncivilized language.
Yes, you can dance to Radiohead.
And King Kong was unwatchably, laughably bad.
Is a Director judged on their latter movies? Because if they are, I wouldn't want Jackson to do The Hobbit.[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Nasty Hobbitses, nowsa yousa gonna die.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Sorry, my friend. But you are 100% wrong here.
The story is the story. And that's that. JRR wrote it in a particular way to tell a particular story. If you make changes, you change the story. It is no longer JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. It becomes Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings - a different story.
Omissions, like Bombadil, I can excuse. It's not a change per se, it's an omission. In your mind's eye you can still imagine that they met Tom, they just didn't have enough time to show you the meeting. But the changes. Inexcusable.
If you'd like an example of why people get so torqued over this, consider Frodo. His relationship with Sam and with Gollum as they traveled. In the books it was Frodo, his trusted servant Sam, and Gollum whom he never really trusted. "His promise will hold him for a bit, Sam". That kind of a thing.
But making Frodo take the word of Gollum over that of Sam when they were at Minas Morgul? Exactly *how* does that help convey JRR's ideas better because it's on film???
Short answer is - it does not. It is a change that Peter Jackson thought would be better than the original story, or make for more exciting film, or whatever. And no offense PJ if you're reading this - but I seriously doubt you're a better story teller than the Old Professor.
Omit things due to time, fine. Add a few cute scenes that don't change the story (like the wagon ride with Frodo and Gandalf at the beginning of Fellowship) - fine.
Make a change because you think you're a better storyteller than JRR - no way. If you think you're a better storyteller then write your own damn stories and make movies of those.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
But just like PJ and The Hobbit, keep the hope alive buddy, keep the hope alive.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
You're joking, right? Tolkien is the master of wasting pages. The entire fucking flight from the Shire took roughly 150 pages and consisted of hobbits walking, cowering in the bushes because the Nazgul came by, and pissing themselves in fear. 150 pages and there was no plot development, no character development, no action, or anything else of substance!
Someone needed to take a red pen to that bloated manuscript. Jackson at least did a good job of it. He may have irritated obsessive purists, but he took what was a decent story mired in excessive ink struggling along at a wretched pace, and turned it into a well-paced story accessible even to those who don't have the patience to read page after page of nothing.
LOTR will remain popular as a rental with future generations, will remain at the head of Peter Jackson's CV, and will be the movie that inspires many big-screen TV purchses for years to come.
The Hobbit and The Sillymarilly--Silamarilia--The Three Rocks will go straight to DVD, will not make a name for the director, possibly the same one responsible for such cinematic triumphs as "Rob Schneider Doo-pa Doo-pa Doo", and will be responsible for many Blockbuster membership cancellations because "they just don't make anything worth watching anymore."
New Line will write off the loss, and make the excuse that the movies were doomed from the start because those "lesser stories" didn't compare to LOTR anyway.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
In other news, the Silmarillion is great literature, and Barbara Taylor Bradford should get a nobel prize for literature.
Seriously, all his works are delightful? Well, that's beyond fandom and into religion. And arguing that popularity is a sure sign of quality is preposterous.
ian
the one interesting bit of the books --- The Scouring of The Shire --- wasn't filmed anyway.
This was a huge disappointment to me. The Shire is Tolkien's greatest creation, and the Scouring of The Shire is essential to the story he was trying to tell.
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'
Meanwhile, the characters themselves are ciphers --- hobbits are dimbos from Zummerset, Elves are a bit mysterious, Orcs are evil personified: go on, name an ambiguous character --- and the plot has McGuffins galore --- whoops, I've killed Galdalf, better bring him back by mysterious means.
Great fantasy writing: Le Guin.
He could have at least cut out a hour of discussion over the 3 movies about reforging a sword that Aragorn had at the start of the first book. And don't even get me started about the Paths of the Dead.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
It is also an interesting commentary on our society today. At the time, nobody saw this as homo-eroticism, guys were allowed to be friends and be close without being considered gay.
Interesting indeed.
In the "bad" old days, the taboo against male-male sexual relations made a safe space for male-male close friendship.
It was precisely because it was unthinkable that there be a sexual dimension to it that it was OK to show affection to a male friend.
So it's actually the newfangled "enlightened" attitudes that have led to "homophobia", by introducing so much ambiguity.
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
Well considering that the books were written at a time before everyone could go to the theater to see a movie, I think it's good that Tolkien described everything the way he did. Books aren't written like movies. All good authors took care in describing everything in great detail. They couldn't cheat by using a big screen. They had to use words. I know it's unbelievable. Try to imagine it. BTW, the books pwnd the movies, and I liked the movies. Also, wtf is the other prequel? The Hobbit is the prequel? Dear God they aren't going to try to make a movie out of the Silmarillion are they? I don't think I'd let Jackson around that one either. That would take some serious hacking to make into a friggin movie.
Beer! It's what's for breakfast!
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?
To each his own, but don't you think you're being a LITTLE harsh? "hideous mess"? "butchery"?
When I first heard about this project, I hung my head in despair with visions of how Hollywood would inevitably scew things up. "Relief" was my primary emotion when I saw the films.
This was a daunting (impossible?) task to begin with. Based on your typical book adaptations, or your typical film for that matter, can you just imagine how bad they COULD have been? I thought it was an admirable job. You think Steven Spielberg and Jerry Bruckheimer(cringe) could have done better?
btw, I'm glad that they got rid of Tom Bombadil and the barrow wights, and just wish that there was a way to eliminate Treebeard from the plot.
The Scouring of the Shire was too damning a criticism of socialism for Hollywood to let it play.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Actually, isn't that exactly the opposite of what a book is suppose to do?
I agree, for important characters, scenes and actions, the more details in books the better. But isn't the basic idea of a book to let the READER'S imagination decide what the character looks like? Or how a sword fight unfolds, or what a valley looks like? In those situations, I'd much rather have a general description from the author and let my mind fill in the gaps.
Unless it is intricate to the story, don't waste 10 pages on something that should only take 2 to say. You don't need to write 3 pages of a song that is boring and has nothing to do with the story. I get it, the Hobbits like to sing with that Bombadil (sp?) guy! Once short song is enough.
I'll get jumped on by a bunch of people, but IMHO the wheel of time series is far superior to Tolken's for this exact reason... ignoring a couple of the latest books where Rand walked across a room, Elayne took a batch, and Nynaeve was surly as usual.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Three words. Elf Bitch Romance.
Seriously, what the hell was that about, what did it have to do with the ring, and who's ass was it pulled from?
Say bad words about my book, in cold oatmeal, or I shall sue!
The key three texts are Wizard of Earthsea, Tombs of Atuan, and especially The Farthest Shore. The last is in turn head and shoulder above the other two, but I don't know how readable it is in isolation: I have returned to it regularly over the thirty years since I first read it, the other two less so. There are a couple more novels in the same series she wrote later, which are hopeless, and a book of short stories, which is actually rather good.
Why do I rave?
ian