Peter Jackson Talks Some of His Recent Films
>> Aug 2, 2009
In current Comic-Con, while screening for "District 9", director and producer Peter Jackson had talked about "District 9," "Halo", "The Hobbit," "The Lovely Bones," and pretty much everything else he's working on. Below are some details of them.
About "Halo" project, Jackson said that the video game movie adaptation died because of politics between Universal and Fox, who were both co-funding the project. It wasn't a disagreement over budget or about first-time director Neill Blomkamp but studio politics as usual. "It was almost like losing a member of the family ... well, not that bad, but you've emotionally committed to a movie, and giving it your heart and soul. And you feel terrible about it."
About the upcoming "District 9" film, the director explained that they shot it as a low-budget independent film, although Jackson himself remarked, "We live in a weird world where people say $30 million dollars is not a lot of money." They shot the film in South Africa to keep the costs as low as possible, "We put all the money on the screen." An effects company in Vancouver called Image Engine did all the alien shots, because Jackson's Weta Digital was busy working on Avatar and didn't have the capacity to be able to take on this film. However, they came in near the end of filming and worked on the shots of the spaceship. "I kept encouraging Neill to put more and more splatter in it, because we knew we were going for an R rating."
Meanwhile, about his upcoming directed film "The Lovely Bones", Jackson said he cried when he read the novel, and compares working on the film to his experience on Heavenly Creatures. "I felt like doing something that would be hard and very different. You want to keep trying things that you aren't sure if you can do, and this seemed like a very interesting challenge. It's a very personal book." Although they didn't use the entire book, and Jackson himself said it was difficult to adapt, he's happy with the end result. They included Alice Sebold in the development process for the script, and she provided notes. Based on what Cinematical saw in the film screening in Comic-Con, audiences and fans of the book will both be satisfied with the film.
About "The Hobbit" project, Jackson is currently writing the script for the first of the two planned Hobbit films with Guillermo del Toro, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens. They're about three weeks away from submitting the script to the studio, and they haven't yet put together a budget or submitted anything to cast members for consideration. The film is being directed by Guillermo del Toro, while Jackson himself is taking a hands-off approach to producing:
"I really don't want to be looking over the shoulder of the director. One of the reasons I wanted to produce the movie and not direct it is because I didn't want to compete against myself. I thought I'd given everything I could to "The Lord of the Rings", and I'd be competing against myself with "The Hobbit": how did I shoot Hobbiton the first time, how did I shoot Gandalf coming in through the door. I'd have to look back and do what I did the first time, or not ... the best thing for the project was to find another filmmaker who would do a really great job."
They don't even have a greenlight yet, since the studio is waiting on the script to do a budget breakdown. Then they'll be going out to actors and figuring out how things will work. Once that is finished, they'll start work on the script for part two. They want to bring back any characters that appeared in The Lord of the Rings that are also in The Hobbit by using the same actors.
And finally about "Tintin" project where Jackson is pulling producer duties yet again: They've planned to do three films, which are being directed by Steven Spielberg, and the first one The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn comes out in December of 2011. It's had a long development process since Spielberg first optioned the materials in 1983, but now it's finally happening. Tintin is widely popular throughout the world, but is relatively unknown here in the United States.
"I'm not so worried about American audiences being familiar with Tintin. I mean, there's no reason why the film still can't be released and enjoyed just because American audiences don't largely know about Tintin. I mean, original movies are being made all the time. When "Star Wars" first came out, nobody knew anything about that and it was very successful."
Source: Cinematical
About "Halo" project, Jackson said that the video game movie adaptation died because of politics between Universal and Fox, who were both co-funding the project. It wasn't a disagreement over budget or about first-time director Neill Blomkamp but studio politics as usual. "It was almost like losing a member of the family ... well, not that bad, but you've emotionally committed to a movie, and giving it your heart and soul. And you feel terrible about it."
About the upcoming "District 9" film, the director explained that they shot it as a low-budget independent film, although Jackson himself remarked, "We live in a weird world where people say $30 million dollars is not a lot of money." They shot the film in South Africa to keep the costs as low as possible, "We put all the money on the screen." An effects company in Vancouver called Image Engine did all the alien shots, because Jackson's Weta Digital was busy working on Avatar and didn't have the capacity to be able to take on this film. However, they came in near the end of filming and worked on the shots of the spaceship. "I kept encouraging Neill to put more and more splatter in it, because we knew we were going for an R rating."
Meanwhile, about his upcoming directed film "The Lovely Bones", Jackson said he cried when he read the novel, and compares working on the film to his experience on Heavenly Creatures. "I felt like doing something that would be hard and very different. You want to keep trying things that you aren't sure if you can do, and this seemed like a very interesting challenge. It's a very personal book." Although they didn't use the entire book, and Jackson himself said it was difficult to adapt, he's happy with the end result. They included Alice Sebold in the development process for the script, and she provided notes. Based on what Cinematical saw in the film screening in Comic-Con, audiences and fans of the book will both be satisfied with the film.
About "The Hobbit" project, Jackson is currently writing the script for the first of the two planned Hobbit films with Guillermo del Toro, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens. They're about three weeks away from submitting the script to the studio, and they haven't yet put together a budget or submitted anything to cast members for consideration. The film is being directed by Guillermo del Toro, while Jackson himself is taking a hands-off approach to producing:
"I really don't want to be looking over the shoulder of the director. One of the reasons I wanted to produce the movie and not direct it is because I didn't want to compete against myself. I thought I'd given everything I could to "The Lord of the Rings", and I'd be competing against myself with "The Hobbit": how did I shoot Hobbiton the first time, how did I shoot Gandalf coming in through the door. I'd have to look back and do what I did the first time, or not ... the best thing for the project was to find another filmmaker who would do a really great job."
They don't even have a greenlight yet, since the studio is waiting on the script to do a budget breakdown. Then they'll be going out to actors and figuring out how things will work. Once that is finished, they'll start work on the script for part two. They want to bring back any characters that appeared in The Lord of the Rings that are also in The Hobbit by using the same actors.
And finally about "Tintin" project where Jackson is pulling producer duties yet again: They've planned to do three films, which are being directed by Steven Spielberg, and the first one The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn comes out in December of 2011. It's had a long development process since Spielberg first optioned the materials in 1983, but now it's finally happening. Tintin is widely popular throughout the world, but is relatively unknown here in the United States.
"I'm not so worried about American audiences being familiar with Tintin. I mean, there's no reason why the film still can't be released and enjoyed just because American audiences don't largely know about Tintin. I mean, original movies are being made all the time. When "Star Wars" first came out, nobody knew anything about that and it was very successful."
Source: Cinematical
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