peter jackson
Flotsam & Jetsam
10 Things From Comic-Con That You Need To Know About
6:00AM Brian Moylan | Why bother going to San Diego for Comic-Con when you can just sit in your living room and read all the good coverage of it! Now, when you talk to your nerdy sci-fi friends, you won’t look like an idiot. More »
Hollywood PrivacyWatch: Peter Jackson Eating a Failure Pile in a Sadness Bowl Edition
7:10AM STV | 1/28 — I was at the Beverly Centre food court last night having an overpriced Haagen Dazs with my pretty Indian date, fighting the urge to bring up Slumdog Millionaire because I’m sure a bunch of white guys like me have already used it as a lame conversation piece, when I see PETER JACKSON eating KFC for dinner with his wife and some other woman. He was nursing one of those bowls that looks like something a dog would turn down. I wonder if he valeted or parked across the street at the Beverly Connection like me… [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.au.] More »
‘The Lovely Bones’ To Stay Buried Until Fall 2009
9:30AM Seth | Yet further ominous news for Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lovely Bones: Yesterday, we reported internet mumblings that production had halted so that the director and his production designer could seal themselves inside a Wingnut Films conference room until one emerged, bruised and bloodied, but wielding the winning illustrations for the film’s version Heaven. More »
‘Lovely Bones’ Shuts Down Over Creative Afterlife Differences
9:15AM Seth | It was Ryan Gosling who was originally blamed for being the temperamental artiste gumming up the works on the set of Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, but recent mumblings suggest it is the exacting director who is proving to be his own worst enemy: Production has reportedly temporarily shut down as Jackson battles with his art director over how to best depict the movie’s version of Heaven. On top of that, Susan Sarandon has grumbled on the Speed Racer red carpet about how she was instructed to play her character. From Flicks.co.nz: There’s trouble in paradise. Our spies have reported that Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones has ceased filming due to a rift between the big man and his art director over the best way to depict Heaven. [...] More »
If ‘The Hobbit’ Must Be Made, We’d Rather See One of These Directors at the Helm
2:15AM Defamer Hollywood | Our dissatisfaction at Friday’s news that Guillermo del Toro would inherit the Hobbit reins from Peter Jackson met with a mix of scorn and curiosity over the weekend. “Pony up an alternative, Cochise,” wrote a commenter. “Destroy those two GENIUSES and all we will be left with is Lucas and Spielberg. And that is not a world I wish to live in.” Us neither! That said, if the Laws of Hollywood Franchises dictate that this goddamned movie must exist, we can think of at least five talented directors off the tops of our heads whom we’d prefer over del Toro, Jackson or any of the other usual fanboy fantasy suspects. Tell us your own ideal hires after the jump.
‘Hobbit’ Director Debate Ignores Critical Fact that ‘Hobbit’ is Rubbish
9:50AM Defamer Hollywood | There’s been much to-do over the last day about Peter Jackson’s hiring of Guillermo del Toro to direct the two-part Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit. Among our favourite dissenting opinions belongs to Salon critic Andrew O’Hehir, who pulls out his Cannes ‘06 interview notebook to look up del Toro’s sentiment at the time: “I was never into heroic fantasy. At all. I don’t like little guys and dragons, hairy feet, hobbits — I’ve never been into that at all. I don’t like sword and sorcery, I hate all that stuff.” Our sister blog Gawker doesn’t like del Toro’s selection either, but we’re optimistic this is a perfect match for everyone because The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien and Guillermo del Toro all fucking suck. Does it really matter which A-list fantasy/horror fanboy with $300 million of Warner Bros.’ money and Jackson’s imprimatur is going to spend four years jacking off behind a camera in New Zealand? It’s going to be unwatchable. Not only that, but didn’t Jackson make this movie three times already? Here’s our exclusive script excerpt: “EXT. FOREST — DAY. Bilbo Baggins furrows his brow. Visual effects and soundtrack happen. INT. CASTLE — NIGHT. Ian McKellen cameo. More effects. EXT. FOREST — DAY. The end.” It’s a hit! [Salon] More »
Tracy Morgan + David O. Russell = Trouble
5:35AM Seth | David O. Russell’s next movie, a romantic comedy called Nailed, adds James Marsden, Catherine Keener and Tracy Morgan to an all-star cast that already includes Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Biel. As thrilled as we are to see Morgan’s movie career graduate to the level of a Russell production, we fear what mayhem might arise from combining the highly combustible auteur and the manically unhinged actor. [THR] Overseas audiences love 10,000 B.C.! So much so that Warner Bros. has ordered 9999 more sequels, at which point they’ll have Roland Emmerich take a stab at the Nativity Story, in which the baby Savior will fend off bloodthirsty sabre-toothed manger goats. [Variety] Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are close to signing Nanny McPhee’s Thomas Sangster to play the lead role in their motion-capture Tintin trilogy. Do they really have to make it motion-capture? Nothing good ever comes from motion-capture. Let’s just leave it in the early ’00s, like we left sundried tomatoes in the ’80s. [THR] More »
5:15AM Mark | Everybody’s Suing Everybody Day continues! Accusing New Line of employing the kind of “Hollywood accounting” practices that could secret billions of dollars of Lord of the Rings revenues in suspicious budget lines like “Hair/Make-up Hobbitscaping Services,” “Elijah Wood Eye-Desparkling Effects,” and “Hide all profits here! Sssssh!,” representatives from J.R.R. Tolkein’s charitable trust and the author’s heirs have filed suit against the studio, looking to be paid their claimed $150 million share of the LOTR bounty: “I think that it’s going to be extremely interesting to see how New Line is going to explain to a jury that these films grossed $6 billion and yet by their calculations the creators’ heirs are not going to get even a single penny.” Given that New Line was rumored to have paid previous profit-seeker Peter Jackson a $40 million settlement to keep their two The Hobbit films on track, Tolkien’s heirs can probably convince the company to comb through their allegedly cooked books to shake loose eight-figures’ worth of make-nice money before things devolve into ugliness. [NY Times] More »
New Line, MGM Hope To Appease ‘Hobbit’ Fans By Throwing Big Bag Of Money At Guillermo Del Toro
8:46AM Mark | Having recently buried the $US40 million hatchet with Peter Jackson to bring to an end that ugly feud over Lord of the Rings profits, New Line (and partner MGM) can now turn its attention to the crucial matter of finding a suitable director (Jackson, as you surely remember, is executive producing) for its two planned Hobbit movies, knowing that making a hasty, ill-considered choice could, as THR notes, “put billions of dollars at stake…and could turn off an audience that encompasses millions of passionate readers, Tolkien fans and obsessive geeks.” More »
