New Line Announces Peter Jackson No Longer Directing The Hobbit, Nerdrage Ensues
Author: AF Duncan
November 29th, 2006
Apparently due to a litigious dispute with Wingnut Films — director Peter Jackson’s production company — over Lord of the Rings trilogy profits, New Line announced a few days ago that they’re moving forward with The Hobbit without Jackson as director. Predictably, Tolkien fans are blowing gaskets all over the interweb:
“This is a big blow to the LOTR community, I feel like there has been a death in the family,” wrote a Web master called Xoanon, referring to the “Lord of the Ring” trilogy by its initials. “Why couldn’t New Line come to an agreement with P J? Is there really a time option on the film rights for New Line? Who will they get to direct?”
Within hours thousands of other fans weighed in on lordotrings.com, onering.com and other sites, worrying about the future of the Tolkien enterprise and asking New Line, which has an option to produce the film until 2009, to back down. Theonering.net was among those calling for a boycott of any Hobbit film not made by Mr. Jackson.
“The fan community as a whole is up in arms about the way Peter Jackson has been treated,” said Chris Pirrotta, a founder of theonering.net site, which has faithfully followed Mr. Jackson for years, even posting his video diary during the making of last year’s “King Kong.” “Fans are very distraught to see someone who’s created something so wonderful being treated so poorly by the studio.”
On the heels of the protest, reporters and entertainment bloggers called the studio to ask about the film’s fate. In what was once an insular club of power brokers and back-stabbers, the voices of outsiders — dancing across the globe at the speed of a modem — have begun to penetrate.
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2 Responses to “New Line Announces Peter Jackson No Longer Directing The Hobbit, Nerdrage Ensues”
November 29th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
Actually there’s hope he might still direct. Rights to the films will be reverting to Saul Zaentz in about a year, and he says that he wants Jackson to direct. I think I read it on The Digital Bits…
November 29th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
From this article:
“And Saul Zaentz, the veteran producer who holds the underlying rights, was quoted on yet another Web site, this one in German, saying Mr. Jackson would indeed direct “The Hobbit,” which still has no script, no budget, no cast and no production date.
In an interview from Italy Mr. Zaentz said he was misquoted, but that Mr. Jackson should be the one to direct “The Hobbit.” “We would like to see it done, of course with Peter Jackson,” he said. “He’s a good film director. He’s the right guy. He knows it too. But it’s a hard thing to do, when you feel you didn’t get the money you were supposed to get.”