Posted on 12/04/2014 8:54:23 AM PST by bkopto
Peter Jackson has said he won't be making anymore movies based on J. R. R. Tolkien's work, because the estate won't let him.
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The writer's son Christopher, who was appointed by his father as his literary executor, said that he was disappointed by the way the movies had diluted the artistry of the novels.
He told Le Monde in 2012: 'Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed by the absurdity of our time.
'The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work and what it has become has overwhelmed me. The commercialisation has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.'
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The contract between the estate and the film studio ensured a profit percentage would go back to them, but despite the Lord Of The Rings trilogy netting a reported $2.9 billion in global box office sales studio bosses said a profit wasn't made when counted against the production costs of all three films.
Tolkien Estate lawyer Cathleen Blackburn told Le Monde in 2012: 'These hugely popular films apparently did not make any profit! We were receiving statements saying that the producers did not owe the Tolkien Estate a dime.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Looks to me like Jackson actually backfilled the Hobbit with material from LOTR, both the Appendices and the main story—after all, Gandalf’s story as to where he went was expanded in LOTR, including finding Thrain in Dol Guldur (something that is in the Desolation of Smaug extended edition). Rewriting Azog as a main character turns it into “alternate universe” and really ought to be left to the fan-fiction sphere, but it seems (at least to me) that Jackson wanted to evoke the atmosphere of the Fellowship being hunted by the Nazgûl.
As for the “sweetness” of The Hobbit, even Tolkein expressed regret that the story was not more LOTR-like, and had to rewrite Gollum’s part in the “Riddles In The Dark” chapter to match what was going on in the later story.
That character always confused me. Bombadil started out as a poem of Tolkein’s published in 1934, three years before The Hobbit came out (”The Adventures of Tom Bombadil”), unrelated to the story initially.
The Fellowship actually started out very Hobbit-like, which was part of its power (over me, anyway) - it was all nice and sweet and avuncular until the Nazgul showed up in the Shire. At which point I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. It was sort of like paddling around in the shallow end of the pool thinking you’re safe and all of a sudden realizing that you were in the deep end all along. Problem is, you can only do that once, but it sure worked on me.
Gross is revenues. 1% of $3b in revenues is $30m. My guess is the estate wanted some significant % of profits, and Hollywood agreed after some hemming and hawing (while laughing up their sleeves). That turned out to be a bad idea for the estate.
Not only that, but Jackson doesn’t want to. He didn’t want to make Hobbit. But it couldn’t get the funding until he agreed to produce, then there was chaos getting a director so he finally had to step in. And it shows. You can practically smell the burnout coming off the screen. Expect him to make sure the estate doesn’t green light anymore.
Which they’ll never do.
I'm sure Hollywood will - it routinely hands them out to actors and directors key to a franchise. My guess is that the estate wants compensation for LOTR, and that may be the sticking point, given that the money's already long divvied up.
Agreed. This is rank hypocrisy of the first order. Knowing that his side can define what "gross profit" means and knowing that is always tweaked such that said profit is always zero, Jackson and these studios are nothing but robber barons.
I am a huge huge fan of the books, and have read them many times. Enjoyed the movies immensely and while not scrupulously faithful adaptations, I think they stand well on their own.
All that being said, there is so much good fantasy out there that is dying for the “Epic” treatment of a phenomenal talent like jacksons. I would love to see Wizards First Rule, Wheel of Time, Farseer, Anything by Raymond Feist and or David Gemmell, R.A. Salvatore (Drizzt Do’Urden) and so many many more. Obviously there is a huge market for true fantasy stories done right on the big screen. They don’t need to keep beating the tolkien horse.
Same applies to the music industry. Quite a few musicians got tricked into taking a piece of the “net” of concerts rather than the gross.
I think in Hollywood, "gross" is shorthand for gross receipts, i.e. revenues, not profits.
They signed a percentage-of-net contract? That’s barely one step above buying a deed to the Brooklyn Bridge or sending your banking data to a Nigerian prince.
Not if they already have a contract that gives you the points on profit where they like it. They don’t routinely hand out points on gross, they routinely deal with actors and directors that have been screwed over before and have developed the cache to be able to demand points on gross. Which is probably part of why the estate didn’t get it in the first place, the Hobbit cartoon flopped, and when these options were bought was before the golden age of CGI and it was a property considered to be largely unfilmable. Then PJ used every filming trick in the book, and wrote a couple of new chapters, to pull off LOTR. But it wasn’t a hot property, so there’s no way they would have given points on gross. Even now, given the difficulty of getting a director for Hobbit, it probably still won’t be considered hot, so nobody will be slavering to get the next option.
The Silmarillion is rich in stories. 2 Tragedy themed and 1 Justice themed. Just off the cuff the story of Hurin, until his point of capture, then the Fate of Hurin’s family centered around Turin, good two parter. A third and final part could be the story of Beren, linked through tenative connection to Thingal and Melian.
Paraphrased quotes from how I remember the stories.
On Hurin: “... and his ax rose 23 times and each time a great orc fell, and then overcome, his ax rose no more.”
On Turin: Nienor “Fair well twice beloved and then threw herself into the raging waters of Sirion”
On Beren: “... and Beren presented his remaining hand to Thingol and opened it, but it was empty, for the Silmaril he swore to hold in his hand was in his lost hand lying in the stomach of the Great Wolf.”
The story of Turin and Nienor would have been quite censored in the past due to its theme of incest (brother/sister); but that was caused by the dragon Glaurung, making them forget each other.
I don’t know that he is that leftist. But they have ridden that ride for a long time. I am holding out for the Director’s Cut before I make my decision on the whole thing.
“—Once you do the Hobbit and LOTR, what else is there?—”
“Net profits” in Hollywood are known as “monkey points.” And monkey points are what the vast majority of Hollywood contracts contain. Only the rarest and most elite participants in any movie receive “gross points” - and even then, there are many different definitions of “gross.”
If I remember correctly, at one time Jackson wanted to make a “bridge” film that would cover the 60 years between events in “The Hobbit” and the LOTR trilogy.
This would include material from the timeline Tolkien added to the appendix of ROTK, i.e.,when Theoden and Denethor were young, and a mysterious young man named Thorongil appears in Gondor and Rohan..
I don’t know if any of this material will appear in the 3rd “Hobbit” film, but apparently plans for a “bridge” film were scrapped some time back..but then, you never know..would not surprise me if one gets made eventually.
Creative bookkeeping notwithstanding, so much money has been made on the other films, it would seem someone will want to keep the money flowing, and will make the “bridge” film..we shall see, I guess!!
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