stuff.co.nz, a New Zealand new aggregator, has published a brief but fascinating little story on Peter Jackson. While the rest of us are pointing out how incredibly successful Peter has been in carrying through on his ambitious plans, he’s apparently worrying about failing. The story quotes him:

“You’re always imagining the best, and then you always have to compromise for what you get in the real world,” Jackson said.

“It’s a process of constant disappointment. But somehow you have to hope that you set your goals high enough that even with the disappointment, you still end up with something that other people enjoy.”

I’m not sure that adds up to being “driven by fear of failure,” as the headline rather melodramatically puts it. I think anyone who’s had even a moderate degree of success fears failure.

Still, Peter has more reason to worry than most of us, since a great deal is riding on his continued success. Among the companies that Peter owns or co-owns–WingNut, Park Road Post, and Weta Ltd.–there are hundreds of employees. Thousands at the height of a big production, and the filmmaking infrastructure in Wellington seems always to be hard at work on a big production these days. Peter and his partners feel an enormous responsibility to those employees, and a big flop would affect many of them.

Along the way, the stuff.co article also mentions that Peter “has just finished the screenplay for the Hobbit film.” More confirmation that the script–and that would be for the first half of the two-part film–is finished. Now it’s presumably in the process of being budgeted and greenlighted. A film not likely to flop.

I doubt The Lovely Bones will fail, either. For a start, the trailer looks pretty good to me. Plus, now that Martin Scorsese’sShutter Island (originally October 2, now February 19) has been put back to the spring, Paramount has only two films due for release in the fourth quarter, Up in the Air, a George Clooney film gaining Oscar buzz (exact release date not announced) and The Lovely Bones (December 11). That will almost certainly lead the studio to concentrate on publicizing these two and pushing them for Oscar noms.

Thanks to fan and fellow blogger Ryan Rasmussen for alerting me to this story! You can find his blog, currently featuring a review of District 9 and multiple entries on his recent trip to New Zealand (with some beautiful photos) here.

By now you probably have heard that Ian McKellen made a surprise visit to the British Film Institute’s marathon trilogy screening and confirmed that he’ll be back in New Zealand for filming starting in March. He expects to receive a script soon and says he knows who has been cast as Bilbo. (He says “Frodo” by mistake, but it’s clear what he means.) Fan Karl Falconer got a huge scoop by filming Ian with his cell phone. The result, posted on Facebook, shows Ian from a great distance, but the spectator can hear his dulcet tones dispensing information.

(I’m not sure whether you have to be a member of Facebook to get through to the clip, which is a little under 3 minutes long. After clicking on the link at TORN, I was asked to login.)

This is all pretty much what we’ve known and/or suspected was happening. Principal photography has long since been announced as beginning in March. Few things were as certain as that Ian and Andy Serkis would be returning. Peter announced at Comic-Con that in three weeks the script for the first part of The Hobbit would be sent to New Line/Warner Bros. for approval. Now, about four weeks later, it sounds as though the writers met their deadline.

In short, movement toward making The Hobbit a reality is happening as expected, and it’s great to hear the confirmation of all that from Ian’s own mouth! I suspect that very soon we’ll be getting a lot more real news.

Yesterday I linked to a Variety story about Harry Sloan’s exit from the CEO post at MGM, co-producer of The Hobbit and owner of its distribution rights. That story was fairly neutral and made the change seem like not that big a deal.

Today Variety has a follow-up story with a considerably less rosy view of the situation. For a start, some debt repayment is due next year, not just in 2012, as yesterday’s story stated. Some industry experts think that MGM is headed for bankruptcy. One of MGM’s main assets was its huge library of film classics, but the economic crisis has cut into DVD sales, the studio’s main source of income.

One interesting revelation about The Hobbit comes out in this new story:

The latest restructuring casts further doubt on MGM’s plans to co-finance future films. Warner Bros. has already explored alternate funding for “The Hobbit.” Observers speculate that the Bond franchise may be one of the assets that come into play.

I wonder if the distribution rights for The Hobbit might also be a valuable asset that MGM will eventually be forced to sell. I’m sure Warner Bros. would love to finally bring all the production and distribution rights to the trilogy and The Hobbit together at last, for the first time since the 1970s. And I doubt Warner will have any trouble getting funding for The Hobbit if it turns out to be necessary.

Warner happens to be having a terrific year, being number one among studios at the box-office, with almost a billion and a half in grosses so far–thanks in part to a little item called The Hangover, as well as to a more predictable hit, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. That’s just over a fifth of the total BO. MGM trails along in last place at 0.6%, or about $42 million.

Anyway, it’s not likely that MGM’s troubles will have any impact on The Hobbit. It’s just another twist in the long and complicated path toward getting that film onto screens.

[Later August 19: The LA Times has a good story on the situation, suggesting that MGM might be sold off, with the potential buyers including Time Warner (which was rumored to be looking at buying MGM a few years ago). It would be a sad fate for a once-great studio that gave us such films as Singin’ in the Rain. Still, the Times story confirms, “It’s unclear whether MGM will have the financial wherewithal to co-finance two big-budget “Hobbit” movies with executive producer Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. and to produce the 23rd installment of the James Bond series.”]

Variety reports today that Harry Sloan is stepping down as CEO of MGM. That position will now be divided among “motion picture group chief Mary Parent, chief financial officer Bedi Singh and newly appointed vice chairman Stephen Cooper. Sloan will continue as non-executive chairman and remain on the studio’s board of directors.” (Sloan is also a major investor in MGM.)

Regular readers will recall that Sloan was the person credited with helping Peter Jackson and New Line reach a settlement in Peter’s lawsuit against the studio. That happened in late 2007, and on December 18, MGM and NL announced that they would be co-producing The Hobbit.

MGM’s participation came about because it owned the distribution rights to Tolkien’s novel. Somehow those rights didn’t get sold to by United Artists to Saul Zaentz, and so he didn’t have them available to sell to Miramax when PJ decided he wanted to direct The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. (MGM later acquired U.A., and with it those distribution rights.) The result was that Peter and Miramax decided to skip The Hobbit and move on to the trilogy, and the rest is history.

Sloan’s move out of the CEO’s office shouldn’t have any impact on the making of The Hobbit. MGM is struggling to manage massive debt, but payment isn’t due until mid-2012, and a month ago auditors declared it in good enough shape to keep on operating. By 2012, MGM will have released the next James Bond film, thus taking back control over the long-lived franchise that it launched in the 1960s. It will also have premiered the first part of The Hobbit. In the short run, it has a slate of other films due out, starting with its remake of Fame on September 25.

(I have covered Sloan’s part in The Hobbit film in a number of entries, primarily: March 13, 2008; May 19, 2008;and October 12, 2008.)

With the release and success of District 9 and the first trailer for The Lovely Bones out, it seems to be a time for reflections on Peter Jackson’s success. I reflected here a couple of weeks ago. I linked to the Wall Street Journal reflections here. TORN’s MrCere reflected here, mostly on Comic-Con. Now New Zealand’s news aggregator stuff.co has posted a chatty reflective story by Barney McDonald from the Sunday Star Times, a weekly national newspaper published in Auckland. McDonald’s duties as a reporter have allowed him to be onset during some of the pickups for The Two Towers and The Return of the King, as well as to interview Peter on a number of occasions. (As usual, the writing carefully conceals whether McDonald was part of a group in a press junket or got to speak with the man one on one.) There’s nothing much that’s new in this article, but there are copious quotes from PJ, and it’s always good to read about things in the man’s own words.

We should, however, be coming up to that point where the script for the first part of The Hobbit goes off to New Line/Warner Bros., and we may be moving beyond reflection and getting some real news–not to mention the Tolkien Trust court date being only a little over two months away.

Ever since Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp previewed District 9 at Comic-Con, the film has received an enormous amount of publicity. It’s had some impressive reviews as well, from professional critics as well as fanboys and girls.

Variety‘s reviewer admired it, and yesterday the magazine ran an interview with Blomkamp and a brief article on its cinematographer, Trent Opalach. more »

TheOneRing.net has posted a brief MTV interview with Peter Jackson in which he talks about the decision to break The Hobbit into two films rather than doing a single-feature version and a “bridge” film. A lot of people, including me, were pleased to hear that, since obviously it will mean that more of the novel can be retained.

Asked whether it still might be possible someday to make a bridge film, Peter replies, “I don’t think it can. As far as I’m aware, I think that Warners and New Line only have the right to do two movies, so I don’t think there’s any opportunity to do a third film–no matter how much fun that would be.”

Actually, as I understand the original 1969 contracts, the rights to produce The Lord of the Rings included the opportunity to make sequels. On August 4, 2008, New Line filed a “request for Judicial Notice in Support of Demurrer,” which included the original two contracts (one for Fellowship and Return, the other for Towers and The Hobbit) as Exhibits 1 and 2.

In section 2, the rights are sold “forever,” which is unusual. Most adaptation rights are sold for a limited period of time. That’s one reason why the Tolkien Trust’s current lawsuit against New Line is so complicated: they’re dealing with the language and provisions of a forty-year-old legal document.

In that same section, sub-section b) declares that these rights include:

The sole and exclusive right in connection with the making, exhibition and exploitation of said motion picture photoplays to translate into all languages, to freely adapt, change, transpose, revise, rearrange, add to and subtract from the Work or any part thereof and the title, theme, plot, sequences, incidents and characterizations thereof, to make interpolations in and substitutions for any part of [sic, for “or”] parts thereof, to make sequels to and new versions or adaptations of the Work or any part thereof, to use any part or parts of the Work ofr of the theme thereof or any incidents, characters, character names, scenes, sequences or characterizations therein contained in conjunction with any other work or works…

That leaves an awful lot of options for the filmmakers. They would not be allowed to use scenes from other published works by Tolkien, like the Unfinished Tales or “The Quest of Erebor” (a section cut from the draft of the appendices for reasons of length and first published in its entirety in the second edition of The Annotated Hobbit). But there’s a lot of material in the appendices of LOTR as published that could be mined for inspiration. The chronology in Appendix B, for example, has several entries on Gandalf meeting Aragorn, on Aragorns’ adventures as a young man, and so on. Take this passage:

Gandalf and Aragorn renew their hunt for Gollum at intervals during the next eight years, searching in the vales of Anduin, Mirkwood, and Rhovanion to the confines of Mordor. At some time during these years Gollum himself ventured into Mordor, and was captured by Sauron. Elrond sends for Arwen, and she returns to Imladris; the Mountains and all lands eastward are becoming dangerous.

In fact, one fanfilm, The Hunt for Gollum, has already been made using the first sentence. Combined with other, similar passages, this could make the bare bones of a bridge film.

I’m not saying the Peter and Guillermo and the other filmmakers have any real desire to extend their series by mining the appendices for more narrative material. I do believe, though, that New Line/Warner would have to right, perhaps far in the future, to undertake such films, whether the current filmmakers participate or not. They would probably have to do this within a certain time limit or their contract with Saul Zaentz (which is definitely not forever), but they could probably pay to extend their option.

Guillermo del Toro has taken on yet another project. He’s producing a Spanish horror film in conjunction with the Barcelona firm Rodar y Rodar. That’s the same combination that brought us The Orphanage, an excellent earlier horror film which was successfully distributed in the U.S.

The new film is Los ojos de Julia, or Julia’s Eyes, to be directed by Guillem Morales. Focus Features, a subsidiary of Universal and one of the few art-house niche companies still operating in Hollywood, is co-financing.

Spain and particularly Barcelona have been turning out quality horror films, so it’s not surprising that GdT is involved. According to Variety‘s story, “Del Toro helped broker the production deal with Focus Features Intl. and has helped supervise writing and casting.”

When he had time to do that, I don’t know, but like Peter Jackson, Guillermo seems determined to help foster young talent working in the horror genre. Principal photography is due to start October 5.

Today the Wall Street Journal posted a lengthy summary of Peter Jackson’s filmmaking facilities in Wellington and his multifarious recent projects as producer and director. Not a lot of it will be news to fans who have been keeping up all along since the LOTR trilogy’s production. Still, both PJ and his former agent, now fellow producer Ken Kamins provided some interesting quotations for the story.

Peter remarks concerning The Hobbit, “In some respects, I’m still not sure if I made the right decision in not directing, because I’m enjoying it so much.” Ken says of Peter’s lawsuit against New Line Cinema, “This was purely a business dispute. Once it was resolved, everyone was happy to proceed with an ongoing creative relationship.”

Bonnie Eskenazi, one of the main lawyers for the Tolkien Trust in its current lawsuit against New Line over money allegedly owed for the trilogy, has this to say: “This lawsuit has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the the films. It has to do with the money.” She is perhaps responding to some fans’ apparent belief that the lawsuit is at least in part some sort of revenge on the part of some members of the Tolkien family for what they see as a poor adaptation–possibly even an attempt to shut down the production of The Hobbit. I think Ms Eskenazi’s statement is most likely true: this is a matter of money, and lots of it.

The article also contains the first statement concerning the lawsuit that I have seen from Peter: “I can only assume that whatever the result is, it will allow the film to get made and completed.”

Finally, PJ also reverted to the idea that while Guillermo del Toro is directing The Hobbit, he might return to his roots as a filmmaker. District 9 “has got me itching. Maybe I should find a little low-budget horror movie that I can just be making in the meantime.” Given that the filmmaking enterprises that he and his partners created are now highly successful and don’t depend on Peter’s own big projects to keep them supplied with business, there would be nothing to prevent that. As I pointed out here recently, his ambitious plans, many announced in the early autumn of 2006, have started coming to fruition in a big way.

(Thanks to loyal reader David Platt for calling my attention to the WSJ story.)

On TheOneRing.net, MrCere has posted a long account of Peter Jackson’s various statements during the Comic-Con events centered around him. MrCere gives a lot of personal thoughts on events, both past ones and possible future ones. He’s been involved in the fandom for a long time and knows his subject, so the piece is well worth reading.