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New Line And Jackson - Irreconcilable Differences
Petersko writes to mention a CNN article about an escalation between Peter Jackson and New Line that likely means we'll never see a Jackson-helmed "Hobbit" film. From the article: "In an interview with the Sci Fi Channel news service Sci Fi Wire, [New Line co-chairman Bob] Shaye said Jackson will never make another movie for the studio and said the filmmaker just wants more money. 'I don't care about Peter Jackson anymore,' Shaye said. 'He wants to have another $100 million or $50 million, whatever he's suing us for. He doesn't want to sit down and talk about it. He thinks that we owe him something after we've paid him over a quarter of a billion dollars. ... Cheers, Peter.'"
how much did THEY make from the films?
He thinks that we owe him something after we've paid him over a quarter of a billion dollars. ...Z
With that kinda cash he can finance his own movies.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
Does it really matter? If they find a competant guy, who cares for him. He just has a more famous name, that's all.
'He wants to have another $100 million or $50 million, whatever he's suing us for. He doesn't want to sit down and talk about it. He thinks that we owe him something after we've paid him over a quarter of a billion dollars.
It would seem the disagreement comes over "creative accounting" practices over at New Line. It would also seem that Peter Jackson has already tried to "sit down and talk about it".
What's really sad is that Shaye is such typical Hollywood; he actually believes an ego-driven pissing contest is more important than creating good work, and paying artists what the contract specifies.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
I don't know what the terms of the contract were, but if Jackson's contract calls for him to be paid more, then I'd say he's completely justified in thinking they owe him something after they've paid him a quarter of a billion dollars. That's why contracts are negotiated - otherwise he could have taken his business elsewhere. They can't retroactively say "We paid you $250 million and that's an awful lot of money, don't be greedy" if they agreed to $300 million.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
Sure, he'll probably get some more money out of it (if he's right), but it sounds to me like New Line is attempting one hell of a mischaracterization...
Who wants to bet we'll see "younger, edgier" hobbits and a "rockin'" soundtrack. Justin Timberlake is getting some good buzz for his new movie. I wonder what his version of "The Road Goes Ever On and On" would sound like . . .
Dont newline cinema have a finite period of time in which they can do the hobbit before they lose the rights to it?
Who says Shaye will be there next week? Things could change in
an hour. An active lawsuit certainly affects business partners
but the studios board just needs to make the tiny conceptual
leap that another couple billion dollars is better than Shaye.
Sheesh, anyone believe ANYTHING said in H'wood? Give me a break.
and if I was Chairman of his board he would be fired.
Nevermind how much Peter Jackson was paid - how much did he make for them ? Yes, I am sure he can be replaced - after all, movies of the quality and popularity of LOTR are so common.
Ok, the story as I understand it now, or at least as far as it is reported in the various press releases.
NewLine has limited time left to produce the Hobbit, before the movie rights return back to another company. Peter Jackson is suing New Line because their own audit of Fellowship of the Ring came up with figures that didn't match what NewLine paid to them. Their contract has regulations for this , and since NewLine refuses give more insight into their accounting, they are left with a courtcase.
NewLine then tried to get Peter Jackson to drop the lawsuit by telling him "drop the lawsuit, and you can make the hobbit". This was refused by PJ in a public letter, who stated that he wouldn't want to invest time and efford into a new project while the courtcase is still unresolved.
NewLine can now make a Hobbit without PJ, or do nothing and see the rights to a valuable movie franchise revert to its previous owners within the not too far future.
Meanwhile, MGM holds the distribution rights for the Hobbit, and has already said on record that they would want Peter Jackson to direct the film.
(and as for whom owns what, Google the details)
The LOTR movies are in the lists of top grossing films. Adding up the numbers from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-gross ing_films seem to indicate that ~3 Billion has been made. Assuming Jacking is getting a percentage of gross (if he was smart) would mean that 300 million would be ~10 % which sounds reasonable. Of course this doesn't include rentals and DVD purchases etc. which could easily be another billion.
$0.02
Nice way to ignore the move studio's greed.
Is it crazy to pay anyone millions of dollars for their work? Maybe, maybe not, but if a major company agrees to pay someone $X for their work and what they bring to a project it's utterly wrong to turn around and play the "you're being greedy wanting more money" card. If you agree to a deal with someone and they meet (and agruably exceed) your esxpectations then you should honor the deal, if you don't your a greedy slimeball who should be avoided at all costs.
New line agreed to pay Jackson according to some formula based on how well the movies did. Jackson is questioning their accounting practices and instead of turning around and saying "fine, look at the books, we paid you what we agreed to pay you", New Line has resorted to school yard tactics and they're basically calling him names. They have the information that could settle this case once and for all and the fact that they refuse to provide it makes it look like they do have something to hide.
You can lament that some people's salaries exist in a range that most of us can't even pretend to dream of, but think about what the big company is going to do to the average consumer if they'll turn on Jackson after he made them an amount of money that is many times greater than the what they paid him.
Good job at looking at just one side of the situation.
Movie studios do this kind of thing all the time. Frequently they give actors and directors "points on the back" which is supposed to mean a portion of "profit".
What the studios do is claim the film hasn't made any profit, and cite an enormous number of line items which cost the producers money.
What the studios have actually done is just shuffled money around: Spending in one place, and earning back somewhere else. Its an effort to avoid paying for those points.
There's a famous story of Forrest Gump which was smash hit, but supposedly never made any money because of creative financing. The studio got rich, and those with backend points never got a dime.
The audit Jackson wants to do would very likely trace those lost profits right back to the producers.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
It works like this: Someone says "I'll give you $X to do this, You do the job and receive $Y. When they refuse to explain the difference you take them to court. The reason they get paid soo much, is supply and demand. If you make 3 movies like Lord of the Rings, you can ask for that much money. It's called capitalism.
God was my co-pilot, but then we crashed and I was forced to eat him.
I totally agree about Bob Nardelli - what I've read about his resignation from Home Depot seems to indicate it came from the stock losing ground vs. a competitor over a six-year period, and you're right that most of us would simply be shown the door without a golden handshake for doing a poor job.
That said, this has absolutely nothing to do with Peter Jackson vs. New Line.
Signing a contract with somebody saying you're going to pay them a certain amount of money, then covering your tracks so you don't have to pay them as much - if this is indeed what occurred - deserves to be pursued just on principle, regardless of the amount of money involved. I don't care if we're talking $250 million for making a trilogy that grosses $3 billion dollars as the box office, or $25 for fixing a friend of a friend's computer. There's still something to be said these days about giving your word to somebody and then following through with it.
waa waa we already paid so much we shouldn't have to follow the law and pay what we agreed to. following the law is for other people not us.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I can not imagine ever thinking $250 million is not enough FOR MY OWN back account. It would be different if I owned a company but still that is more money than the GDP of some countries. Good god.
What if he wanted to start a company?
Or finance his own movie? Become the next Lucas. (Though hopefully without the decline into sucktitude.)
Or what if he's just concerned about the principle of the thing and is tired of seeing the studios screw the actual artists out of money through "questionable" accounting that produces values like Spiderman making no profit. (Stan Lee said he wasn't wasn't paid anything until he sued Marvel despite the movie grossing over $800m worldwide, having a production budget of under $140 million, and a contract that said he was to be paid 10% of profits.)
It's not Peter Jackson the person suing New Line to reveal whether or not it's cooked the books (and it certainly looks like it has), it's Wingnut Films. Peter Jackson founded the company and I'm sure he owns a big chunk of it, but it's a company nevertheless. A company with shareholders and employees, people who have bills and rent and mortgages.
It looks like the issue is something like this.
Wingnut does a deal with New Line, something like "You lend us X dollars, and we'll make three movies that make you a whole lot more than X. In return, when other companies distribute and license the movies, the characters, the music, and all that stuff, you give us a fair share -- let's call it Y% -- of the money that you make, because after all we made the movies and did all the hard work. Deal? Deal."
Time passes. The movies are huge. They are, in fact, the most profitable movies in history. Rather than just getting back "more than X", New Line is getting something around "more than thirteen times X". Seriously. For every dollar invested, New Line is getting thirteen back.
So, after the chaos of openings and Oscars and awards left and right has calmed down a bit, Wingnut's accountants notice that Y% is turning out to be a lot less money than they expected. So much less that getting Y% is starting to look like a bad deal, especially given that New Line is laughing all the way to the bank. So Wingnut has a preliminary audit done of the first movie's finances, and it turns out that New Line is actually GIVING AWAY THE MOVIES FOR FREE because the partners and licensees it has signed up all turn out to be, surprise surprise, NEW LINE SUBSIDIARIES. And guess what Y% of FREE is. (note: the subsidiaries didn't actually pay nothing, but it was so much less than market value, it's basically the same thing. Especially when Wingnut's deal was based on market value.)
So the accountants alert Wingnut's executives to the fact that Y% of something that is being given away for free isn't very much. Wingnut's executives then go "Holy shit, are you serious? OK, New Line, we've got to have proper audits down, including the second and third movies, to see what the story is".
New Line: "Um, no."
Wingnut: "Seriously guys, something's not right here, we have to go through the books."
New Line: "No."
Wingnut: "OK, well we'll have to get the lawyers involved, because this is starting to look really dodgy."
New Line to the media: "PETER JACKSON IS A GREEDY MOTHERFUCKER AND WE'RE NEVER WORKING WITH HIM AGAIN"
Peter Jackson: "WTF?"
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
Slashdot karma be damned, but IMHO LOTR almost completely failed to capture that Tolkienesque feel that I get from reading the books.
As a Tolkien fan, it could have been far far worse, and it was still an epic movie-making acheivement. I enjoyed the films for what they were. Seeing a cave troll was neat and all, but that over-the-top style, blaring music, and constant cgi-on-steroids action missed the finer points of Tolkien's sense of history and especially language. For god's sake man, let's hear a riddle or two!
So I say let someone with a lighter touch try to capture the spirit of Tolkien on film for The Hobbit.
"They wants the precious for themselves, the stinking dirty thieving little Newline'ssss!"
Saul Zaentz, the producer that the Hobbit rights return to very soon, has already publicly announced that he could give a crap what New Line does, (he sued them for dough back in 2004...around the same time the cast sued them for dough) Peter Jackson will be directing the Hobbit when the rights return to him whether New Line tries to make a version on their own or not. Obviously this can't be guaranteed, but I don't think it would surprise anyone.
I think he's directed some good movies, the LotR trilogy included, but I don't think he was "spot on" in his adaptation. If anything, there were very significant plot elements for which he opted to "adapt" them as being completely opposite to what Tolkien wrote.
I'm not talking about things like amplifying Arwen's role throughout the trilogy or removing Tom Bombadil. Some things just don't play well on the screen, and it's understandable that changes were made (even if I'm not a big fan of those changes).
I'm talking about, among other things, completely reinterpreting a character such as Faramir, who was at his core good and uncorrupted by a desire for power, unlike his brother Boromir. Rewriting Faramir to attempt to deliver the ring to Gondor, instead of seeing it for what it truly was, demonstrated Jackson's (and Walsh's and Boyens's) ignorance of, or refusal to appreciate, Faramir's significance in the story. There was (supposed to be) no conflict in Faramir's mind between helping to save his homeland by destroying the ring and bringing home a prize to please his unappreciative father. He had long ago resigned himself to being considered weak by his father in comparison to Boromir, because his weakness in the eyes of his father - acting for the good of all rather than the glory of Gondor - was actually a strength worthy of his Numenorean lineage.
Jackson claimed that Faramir had to be tempted just as everyone else who encountered the ring faced temptation, but that doesn't hold water - yes, Gandalf was tempted by it, Galadriel was tempted by it, but they both resisted - why couldn't Faramir?
Okay...
Let's say that you agreed to work for 30% of the take.
They make $1 "Billion" dollars.
They give you $250 "Million" dollars.
Are you being greedy to ask for your other bloody 50 MILLION dollars?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Why don't they just give him whatever he wants. It's not like they are going to lose money on another of those films.
Because what he actually WANTS is to have an independent third party to look at their books and decide what is fair (he probably believes they owe him money, but he said he would be happy with whatever the auditors decide).
It is common industry practice to shuffle expenses around from one department to another, so that on paper, even a multi-billion-dollar movie never makes any profit, so the studios get away without paying any royalties. If they gave him what he wanted, these practices would be exposed for all to see. This is much more than a few hundred million from one blockbuster movie - it is about similar practices from every blockbuster movie ever made. No studio in their right minds would dare to have this kind of thing become publicly known (or worse, proven so that all the people they have defrauded out of royalties be able to sue them over it).
Uhn? A bad director took a book, made a complete fucking mess of adapting it to a screenplay and in addition directed the resulting crap-fest badly, and so you think the fault lies in the book? How strange.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
At the risk of making a "me too" post - me too.
First off, we all know how corrupt the movie industry is, and I hope PJ nails those guys to the wall and gets his due. But that being said, I'd like to see someone else make The Hobbit. PJ made too many arbitrary changes to the story for me to truly enjoy his work. He's a brilliant director and makes lovely visuals, but shouldn't be doing the screenplays.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
New Line may have the production rights to The Hobbit, but MGM has the distribution rights. IT was MGM who approached New Line about doing the Hobbit movie(s), and MGM wants Jackson to direct. So does Saul Zaents.
IIRC, production rights revert back to Saul Zaents some time this year if New Line has not legitimately begun production.
Since MGM and New Line are partnering up to do the Hobbit (neither can do it alone, since the rights are split up), MGM could simply stall the process until New Line loses the production rights. Then MGM relicenses production from Zaents, asks Jackson to direct, and everyone is happy.
Except the fans (who may have to wait a while longer for a "proper" Hobbit film to get done), and Bob Shaye, who will miss out on the preciousss profitses from the Hobbit. He simply needs to STFU and allow the audits of the LOTR films to happen.
He thinks that we owe him something after we've paid him over a quarter of a billion dollars
:)
I like how the studio thinks the percentage that they agreed to pay him turned out to be "a lot" that they can reneg. And they keep throwing out this line about how much money he's made to kill people's sympathy for him. But, er, well, why should they get to keep the money? The fact is (at least from what I've read) is that they agreed to pay him on certain terms in the contract, and now they're whining because it was more successful than they expected. Which means they got more than they planned too. But the suits just don't like the idea of the grubby artist personally making so much.
Screw you NewLine. Go Peter.
And heck, I didn't even like the films that much.
Cheers
and a contract that said he was to be paid 10% of profits.
That was his mistake. If you're ever in a position to negotiate a deal with Hollywood, never, ever, go for a percentage of the profits (or net). Go for a percentage of gross. Sure, it'll be a smaller percentage, but the number itself would be non-zero. (Consider if Stan Lee had a contract that said he got, say 1/4 % of the gross. He'd be owed $2 millon.)
As others have pointed out, studios have all kinds of creative accounting practises that will reduce the net to zero, if not negative.
-- Alastair
Can you shoot a commercial grade movie? He can.
I dunno. After King Kong I am not too sure anymore.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/30/60II/mai n527513.shtml
Stan Lee had a contract for a percentage of the profits of the films and merchandise, but the company didn't want to pay him. He sued and was awarded a cut of the profits.
Not immediately relevant, but reminiscent.
After what he and his writers did to Two Towers and Return of the King, I think the material might be better served by someone else.
(Not that I'm holding out hopes of a Hollywood studio being able to find that person)
Errors of omission are to be expected with such a long work, but completely altering some of the major themes of the two works is unforgivable.
This is total spin and should have never been posted on slashdot, my god.
/feeling cynical tonight
Here is a link with a statement from the real owner of the Tolkien rights saying that Jackson will definitely do the Hobbit. The rights for the movies revert back to him sometime within the next year.
This Shaye guy can sit on it and spin himself, greedy fuck.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
Because the people working for minimum wage don't contribute much to the economy. If they did, they'd be able to earn more money -- that's what money is, it's an abstraction of the value of the contribution you make to the economy.
Aside from that, as others have pointed out, this isn't a personal paycheck for Peter Jackson -- it's for a company full of ordinary (well, somewhat extraordinary) people who worked their asses off to make three movies which millions of people enjoyed. New Line Cinema's dodgy accounting practices is screwing those people out of money they have earned.
You know if New Line gave $250 Million to a hobo as an act of charity then I think this numbat would have a point. But they didn't. They gave it to Wingnut films, a business that they had signed a contract with.
I felt that it didn't really change anything with faramir. You do have to consider that the film was going to be seen by mostly those who did read the book. So the temptation of the ring needs to be more blatant. Consider that out of a cast of about a dozen protagonists we already have 2 resisting the ring. As well as 2 other incidental characters who ignore it's charms. Now shows a third who isn't power or special who also resists it and you kind of seriously deluted it's danger.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Erm, it's Peter Jackson's COMPANY doing the whining here, because the COMPANY (with all those people you say that made it successful) that didn't get as much as it should have, which affects those people you say made it successful. You know, the cast and crew?
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
The temptation of the ring was so blatant it led to Boromir's demise. By making Faramir resist the temptation to take it back to Gondor from the get-go, Tolkien sharply contrasted the two brothers, something that was largely missing from the movie. Jackson could have played up that contrast even more with some dialogue that showed that while Faramir desired it as much as everyone else, he was willing to make that sacrifice for the greater good because he was a truly honorable person.
He just might not do it for New Line. When New Line's option for the Hobbit runs out and rights revert to Saul Zaentz another studio can pick it up and hire Jackson and the relevant members of the LOTR cast who support and want Jackson to direct, which would be a very smart business decision of any studio -- New Line doesn't seem to get that when it should be scaring them stupid.
+0 Meh
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
"I'm not talking about things like amplifying Arwen's role throughout the trilogy"
I recently rewatched the whole of LOTR on DVD and it'll be the last time I do watch it. And Arwen is the main reason for that. To be honest, once the initial CGI wow factor has worn off I find it a supremely boring, disjointed film, and Arwen is the main source of that boredom. I'm willing to bite the bullet and accept silly changes and dumbing down, like the cavalry coming to the rescue in TTT, but I can't accept being bored. Would the film REALLY have suffered without all those endless scenes between Arwen and her dad?
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
The thing is, books are omniscient. The author can occasionally spoon-feed the reader direct insight into a character's motivations and mental state. A sentence or two can convey immensities. A reader who gets confused can skip back a page or two, or stop and think for a few seconds.
Whereas in a movie the spectator has to infer it by being shown people doing things, in real time, with unstoppable story progression. If you do exposition, you either need a narrator to be set up and used consistently, or you have to make the watcher view the exposition through the lens of the character doing the talking. (Or, God help you, you can scroll text across a black screen. "It is the year 2147 and robots rule the Earth...") If the exposition is important, it has to be simplified and repeated to make sure the audience doesn't miss it. A flashback to Faramir and Boromir's boyhood could have been used to show their differences, but it would have broken the story flow and introduced at least two new (but not really) characters. Contrast that with how, upon Faramir seeing Pippin's uniform, the movie used a reminiscence to their youth instead of a flashback, which flowed well, burned only a couple of seconds of precious screen time, and gave a great deal of insight into Faramir and his essential humility.
Faramir's actions in the movie clearly showed him to be good, not instantly and not starkly, but surely and strongly nonetheless. In his reflection upon the slain enemy, wondering if the enemy's duty and character were any less than his own. In the flashback to Boromir's lament to the king that "He tries to do well and you give him no credit." He held a sword in anger to Frodo's throat, with no possibility of the Ring escaping his grasp, then drew his hand back because the Ring was not his to wield. At Osgiliath, a trusted lieutenant reminded him of his supposed duty to bring the Ring back, and how failing that duty would cost him his honor in his father's eyes and his life, yet Faramir sent the Ring away with a smile and a clear heart, the cobwebs having been shaken away by the Enemy's hand. Likewise, his unselfconscious kindness and optimism with Eowyn were an echo of the grace of the kings of old; it is no trouble to imagine a prideful Boromir in the same circumstance snapping at Eowyn and raging at the wounds that keep him from battle.
Showing a story simply does not work the same way as telling it. That makes it different, not worse. And more's the luck, with this one you get both.
yes, Gandalf was tempted by it, Galadriel was tempted by it, but they both resisted - why couldn't Faramir?
A) He's a human, and as said in the prologue, men, above all the other races, desire power, and B) he did resist in the end, so what's the problem?
If you watch the documentaries on the extended DVDs they explain the changes to Faramir pretty well. The main problem is that after spending hours beating it into the audience's head that the Ring is the most evil thing ever created, and then to have a character say, as in the books, "I would not take it if I found it by the wayside" just sucks all the power out of the Ring.
You should be asking, in the books, why wasn't Faramir even tempted?