Peter Jackson on The Hobbit

[tdaniel]

replying to my own post...uhg. But Peter Jackon offered this to EW regarding the Hobbit:
Peter Jackson speaks on the Hobbit:

Let's switch gears to The Hobbit. If you signed on to direct it, you'd be working with New Line again, as well as MGM, yet you're still in the process of suing New Line over profit issues on Lord of the Rings. Doesn't that affect your relationship with New Line overall?
No no no, I'd love to make another film for New Line. And certainly The Hobbit isn't involved in the lawsuit. Bilbo Baggins doesn't work for the accounting department of New Line, and I certainly don't hold him to blame for any of our disputes.

Did you actually do any preproduction for a potential Hobbit film during LOTR, or would you have to start nearly from scratch?There would be a reasonable amount [still] to do. There are a couple of locations in The Hobbit that are shared with Lord of the Rings. Hobbiton and Bilbo Baggins' house obviously appear, and Rivendell, where the elves were in Fellowship of the Ring, also plays a part. We've still kept the miniatures of Rivendell in storage, and the set of Bag End, Bilbo Baggins' house, has also been saved.

The larger version of the Bag End set — the one big enough to make Elijah Wood look hobbit-size — is on your own property now, isn't it?
Oh yeah, it's great. It's the guest house. I guess if we needed it for the movie, we could just go and film in it and it'd be fine.

Are your wheels turning about how you might approach adapting The Hobbit even though the prospect has only just come up?Reading about it on the Net, what interested me is the fact that [MGM is] talking about doing two Hobbit movies, which I thought was a much smarter idea than one. Not just for obvious financial reasons for the studios, but from a storytelling point of view, because one of the drawbacks of The Hobbit is it's relatively lightweight compared to LOTR. I mean, LOTR has this epic, rather complex quality to it, and The Hobbit, which was written some 10 or 12 years earlier by Tolkien as a children's book, is much more juvenile and simplistic. If they're seriously thinking about doing two, it makes it more interesting, because it allows you to expand The Hobbit. There's a lot of sections in which a character like Gandalf disappears for a while. From memory — I mean, I haven't read it for a while now — but I think he references going off to meet with the White Council, who are actually characters like Galadriel and Saruman and people that we see in Lord of the Rings. He mysteriously vanishes for a while and then comes back, but we don't really know what goes on. There's clearly lots of interesting politics happening concurrently with [Bilbo's] story, and doing two movies would allow you to explore a lot of those dark areas. You could make it feel more epic and more politically complicated.

[Brendan]

The larger version of the Bag End set — the one big enough to make Elijah Wood look hobbit-size — is on your own property now, isn't it?
Oh yeah, it's great. It's the guest house. I guess if we needed it for the movie, we could just go and film in it and it'd be fine.

So Jackson got New Line to pay for his guest house. Brilliant. That guy is crazy like a fox.

[BJLG]

Peter Jackson speaks on the Hobbit:

Are your wheels turning about how you might approach adapting The Hobbit even though the prospect has only just come up?Reading about it on the Net, what interested me is the fact that [MGM is] talking about doing two Hobbit movies, which I thought was a much smarter idea than one. Not just for obvious financial reasons for the studios, but from a storytelling point of view, because one of the drawbacks of The Hobbit is it's relatively lightweight compared to LOTR. I mean, LOTR has this epic, rather complex quality to it, and The Hobbit, which was written some 10 or 12 years earlier by Tolkien as a children's book, is much more juvenile and simplistic. If they're seriously thinking about doing two, it makes it more interesting, because it allows you to expand The Hobbit. There's a lot of sections in which a character like Gandalf disappears for a while. From memory — I mean, I haven't read it for a while now — but I think he references going off to meet with the White Council, who are actually characters like Galadriel and Saruman and people that we see in Lord of the Rings. He mysteriously vanishes for a while and then comes back, but we don't really know what goes on. There's clearly lots of interesting politics happening concurrently with [Bilbo's] story, and doing two movies would allow you to explore a lot of those dark areas. You could make it feel more epic and more politically complicated.

This is exactly the approach that I was hoping might be implemented in any post-Jackson LotR version of The Hobbit.
The purists will scream at all of the stuff not in the original novel, but Tolkien supplied so much supplementary material that explains what was going on with the White Council expunging the Necromancer from Mirkwood.
By breathing storytelling life into this official Middle Earth history, such a version of The Hobbit would serve even further as a connection to the film version of The Lord of the Rings, giving a chance for Blanchett and Lee to reprise their roles.
I also wouldn't mind seeing the friendship of Gandalf and Saruman established, the arrival of a young Aragorn in Mirkwood on the run from a vengeful Necromancer, even introduce a somewhat younger Arwen and establish Elrond's love and fears for his daughter, and ultimately the Necromancer fleeing back to Morder and the ruins of Baradur.
All of the above could be accomplished without sacrificing, cuttering, or otherwise distracting from any of The Hobbit's established plot.
And of course, anyone other than Ian Holm reprising Bilbo Baggins will be an unforgivable crime.
I think things will be in good hands with Jackson aboard.

[TomBelandTSSTG]

I thought I was going to see a YouTube link to Peter Jackson actually FUCKING a Hobbit. I have to say..... yeah.... I'm disappointed.

[Master Jack Rabbitt]

Wow. I am so jealous of his guest house right now.

[Oeming]

This is awsome. Two fears though:

1- That lawsuits and stuff will not be settled, Im sure there are LOTS more legal issues than we even know about.

B- They actually DONT get Jackson to direct. They may figure the LOR films have esptablished a road map for them and they could simply hire someone else who they could controll.

And him keeping Bag End is the coolest thing ever

[tdaniel]

This is awsome. Two fears though:

1- That lawsuits and stuff will not be settled, Im sure there are LOTS more legal issues than we even know about.

B- They actually DONT get Jackson to direct. They may figure the LOR films have esptablished a road map for them and they could simply hire someone else who they could controll.

And him keeping Bag End is the coolest thing ever

Maybe they settle the suit by giving him an even larger share of the Hobbit!?!
I can't see the film being made without him...

[Brendan]

From memory — I mean, I haven't read it for a while now — but I think he references going off to meet with the White Council, who are actually characters like Galadriel and Saruman and people that we see in Lord of the Rings. He mysteriously vanishes for a while and then comes back, but we don't really know what goes on. There's clearly lots of interesting politics happening concurrently with [Bilbo's] story, and doing two movies would allow you to explore a lot of those dark areas. You could make it feel more epic and more politically complicated.

Yep. I am geek enough to know this.

Gandalf ran off to gather the White Council, which was made up of the five wizards (Gandalf the Grey, Saruman the White, Radagast the Brown, and the two blue wizards), Galadriel, and a few others. Gandalf wanted to deal with the Necromancer once and for all. (Saruman spoke against it.) The Council agreed to do so, and they rose against the Necromancer, who fortress was in the southern parts of Mirkwood. They cast him out, and in so doing discovered that the Necromancer was really Sauron taking shape again.

[GelfXIII]

Geekgasm. Must go clean myself off now.

[Scott Wegener]

What's the lawsuit about? NEver heard of it.