By Ryan Parsons | Image property of respective holders.
The Hobbit
Having a lawsuit against a studio you may make a big-budget epic under is never a good way to start. So is the case of Peter Jackson's Wingnut Films, who filed a lawsuit against New Line Cinema for possible inaccurate distribution of money for Fellowship of the Ring.
To make things more complicated, Jackson was playing middle-man between MGM and New Line Cinema in order to get JRR Tolkien's first book, The Hobbit, up on the bigscreen. Jackson decided that he would not move on The Hobbit until his lawsuit against New Line had finalized. In what came as a shock to Jackson and Walsh, both were alerted that other directors are now being looked at. Why? Time constraints.
You heard correct, prepare to see the JRR Tolkien franchise take a downhill turn.
Jackson and Walsh Off The Hobbit
No Jackson, no Hobbit. Or so is the general understanding held by most fans of the Lord of the Rings movies. It is not the fans, nor Jackson, who get to make the final decision, however, and New Line will be looking elsewhere. Jackson and Walsh recently sent an open letter to TheOneRing to make the news public.
Several years ago, Mark Ordesky told us that New Line have rights to make not just The Hobbit but a second "LOTR prequel", covering the events leading up to those depicted in LOTR. Since then, we've always assumed that we would be asked to make The Hobbit and possibly this second film, back to back, as we did the original movies. We assumed that our lawsuit with the studio would come to a natural conclusion and we would then be free to discuss our ideas with the studio, get excited and jump on board. We've assumed that we would possibly get started on development and design next year, whilst filming The Lovely Bones. We even had a meeting planned with MGM executives to talk through our schedule.
However last week, Mark Ordesky called Ken and told him that New Line would no longer be requiring our services on the Hobbit and the LOTR 'prequel'. This was a courtesy call to let us know that the studio was now actively looking to hire another filmmaker for both projects.
Ordesky said that New Line has a limited time option on the film rights they have obtained from Saul Zaentz (this has never been conveyed to us before), and because we won't discuss making the movies until the lawsuit is resolved, the studio is going to have to hire another director.
In earlier reports Jackson admitted that he didn't know if he'd have time for the project. I am surprised to see that he has already made some time for pre-production during Lovely Bones.
Let's now hope that New Line and Wingnut can get their accounting dilemma figured out quickly in order to at least give Jackson the chance to produce/direct.
Add to Heffee!
