Return Of The King: Peter Jackson To Direct Hobbit Films?
Let’s do an exercise. Pretend you’re Gollum for a minute. I know it’s not a pretty site — dude looks like a cross between E.T. and a 90-year-old Keith Richards — but just humor me anyway and climb into his ugly little head. Despite petting it 23.6 hours per day, you somehow manage to lose the one ring, the precious. It falls into the chubby hands of Bilbo Baggins. Except this time the precious is The Hobbit series, and Bilbo’s fat ass is some hack director like Brett Ratner. You’re just going to have to sit back and watch him lose the precious. Well, its respect at least. In this instance, the Dark Lord Sauron would be someone like Peter Travers or Roger Ebert, who’d reluctantly come along and crush the Tolkien adaptation with an absolutely scathing review.
The good news, apparently, is that fans of Middle-earth will not have to suffer that fate, as Peter Jackson is in talks to direct The Hobbit series (via Deadline, Variety and Heat Vision). Not too long ago, it appeared like Peter Jackson had taken himself out of the running after Guillermo del Toro vacated the director’s chair. But maybe that was simply a ploy to see who else was interested, not to mention an act to demonstrate to his would-be partners and projects that he had serious intentions all along. I wanted Alfonso Cuarón to direct The Hobbit series, but given Jackson’s proven track record his return is even better news. I guess we just never realized it was actually a possibility, either that or we just didn’t want to get our hopes up.
What do we know about these negotiations? Not much. We know Jackson and writing/producing partners Fran Walsh and Phillippa Boyens have been flying around (L.A., London), taking meetings and looking at actors. This also might get MGM to finally cough up some bank (which it really doesn’t even have). It’s also obvious that the Warner Bros./New Line team that really oversees the whole thing has had eyes for Jackson and only Jackson since del Toro dropped out. Will WB want to middle too much with P.J.’s Middle-earth? Will P.J. and his partners be willing to give up another three years of their lives for a Baggins? Those are the questions that will have to be answered in the very immediate future.
Holy sh**, do I wish I had palantír right about now, but the good news is there at least appears to be a strong chance that Jackson will helm The Hobbit series. My imagination is running wild right now, because I’m picturing P.J.’s direction with the artistic vision of Guillermo del Toro and, in my head at least, it looks amazing. Remember, del Toro co-wrote the script, and most of the production design has been prepared. Stay tuned…
