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The head hobbit returns

By Phil Barron ⋅ December 18, 2007 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ Post a comment

There and (wait for it) back again

It probably shouldn’t please me as much as it does that Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema have resolved their legal differences and that the director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy will return to Middle-Earth as executive producer of The Hobbit …but I am indeed pleased. Very much.

So all that litigation-fueled nastiness…

A litigator for New Line, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is working on this lawsuit, said the money paid to Mr. Jackson so far is in line with the contract he signed.

“Peter Jackson is an incredible filmmaker who did the impossible on ‘Lord of the Rings,’ ” this lawyer said. “But there’s a certain piggishness involved here. New Line already gave him enough money to rebuild Baghdad, but it’s still not enough for him.”

…and those intimations of extortion…

Jackson accused New Line of trying to resolve the lawsuit by tying it into his participation in “The Hobbit,” a deal that Jackson admitted would probably make him “much more money” but which was, in his opinion, “the worst reason in the world to agree to make a film.”

“Ken got a call from the co-president of New Line Cinema, Michael Lynne, who in essence told [him] that the way to settle the lawsuit was to get a commitment from us to make ‘The Hobbit,’ because ‘that’s how these things are done,’ ” Jackson wrote. “In our minds this is not the right reason to make a film and if a film of ‘The Hobbit’ went ahead on this basis, it would be doomed.”

…can now go the way of Morgoth. Time to celebrate over a pint at The Green Dragon.

Note: It would be unseemly to suggest that the relative disappointment, box-office-wise, of The Golden Compass had anything to do with this reconciliation between New Line and Jackson. But that doesn’t mean that others haven’t wondered aloud.

Will New Line survive after this? Who knows? Assuming they have any cash left some good could come of “The Great Golden Compass Implosion” of 2007. Maybe, just maybe, New Line might pay what it owes Peter Jackson and pals for The Lord of the Rings and then hand over every remaining dime to Jackson so he can get The Hobbit made in time to save the studio. That’s me being optimistic. Very optimistic.

Sometimes optimism is justified, eh?

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