Peter Jackson - How in the Hell????
 

This has been bugging me for a while now

Peter Jackson Director Bio
http://uk.imdb.com/name/nm0001392/#director

Don't get me wrong I love TLotR - but I remember watching Braindead and Badtaste some years back and although I liked them they were definately low budget and driven by the passion of the Director.

A few years on and Peter Jackson is looking after TLotR movies. With a $250m budget (I stand corrected if this is wrong)

But just how did he manage to swing that? Newline were not exactly rolling in it and TLotR must have been a make or break movie.

Does anyone know the history of how Peter Jackson sold himself to Newline after doing The Frightners? I would love to know if it was luck and timing or sheer skill/perseverance?

i think it very well may have had something to do with the fact that it was a new zealand affair and they wanted someone familiar with the place. correct me if i'm wrong though (and I might well be)

When watching a sort of behind the scenes look at LOTR, it went on about how peter jackson pitched the idea of a LOTR series to many production companies, he wanted to do it in 2 movies, and no one wanted to do it, so his final chance was to go to new line cinema's, and he was planning on saying he would do it in one movie, but before he had a chance to say anything, new line said, well there are three books, i only assume you will be making 3 movies. Peter just nodd'ed and said, yup.

I think it defintely was a make or break movie, and it definitely made it.
:)

that guy wears shorts <b>all the damn time.</b> Not that I care. Return of the King was one of the best movies I've seen in years.

I've always wondered what the movie executive was smoking when they watched bad taste (or one of his others) and said "here's 250 million, have fun".

I also wonder about how someone would watch evil dead and give Sam Raimi $100 million...

Good thing they did.

the answer to both the above questions is balls- big ol brass ones the size of church bells- Never forget that the world belongs to the bold.....

Ok now can somebody stop giving Ben Affleck money?

PJ filmed a short 30 minute film showing all the sketches and models and miniatures that he had created out of his own money and put them all together in a coherrant manner. He pitched the idea of making the films to many film production companies and was rejected (Happened to Lucas too) and finally Miramax (I think) said "Let's do this". A year later Miramax said "Get the fuck out of my office" and PJ was back at pitching his idea only now he had a years worth of material he could use, New Line saw this and said what junglistic mentioned "2 Films? There are three books, make three films" and the rest is history.

My details may be a little sketchy.

That's what J-Lo is for, well, she takes the money he's given.

My understanding of it was that PJ wanted to make three films and Miramax was his first acceptance, but Miramax in their infinite wisdom, said "No two movies, no deal." So PJ just took his business elsewhere, to New Line Cinemas, and New Line said "Yay! Three films!" Heh, heh, doesn't Miramax feel so stupid right now.

This is what I found on RingFAQ, and what I belive to be true:

http://www.ringfaq.com/timeline.html

I was close!

I dont know, but I am most certainly pleased with the way it turned out. It would have been *so* easy to screw it up, to make it overly commercial, but I think Jackson went pretty well with Tolkien's vision, and for that, I am grateful.

The really funny thing is that if not Peter Jackson would have made it, there would be no movies. ;)

He only agreed to the movies if Peter Jackson made them... :)

It also helps that he directed Heavenly Creatures, to show he could do a more serious move, but still with some SFX.

The answer is: Geeks.

New Line took a look at the Star Wars prequels and said, "My god. Those are so bad. _So_ bad. Yet the geeks line up to see them, repeatedly. They can't lose! We need to get us some of that. What else do geeks like? I know! The Lord of the Rings! Eh. Who cares if it'll suck? The geeks'll still go to see it."

Those may not have been the exact words, but it was probably something along those lines.

Come on.. anyone who has seen Meet the Feebles KNOWS that Peter Jackson has been pure genius his entire life.

I watched Braindead quite recently (I've seen the others too, but all a long time ago) and if you can see through the splatter and the low budget, there is definitely some good movie-making there.

IIRC Bad Taste is even lower budget and not quite as good, but bear in mind Jackson made it during the weekends with the help of friends and family.

gospel. pure gospel.

i loved meet the feelbles, tyhe hippo with the machine gun cracks me up, especcially when you acctually see blood n guts explode outta all those puppets

Amen to that Brother!

V.

Agreed!
Peter Jackson had shown that he had vision, skill, humour and time by making the low-budget movies. Then he made Heavenly Creatures and showed he had the emotion. Then he made The Frighteners and showed he could handle Hollywood. I personally think that they couldn't have made a better choice.

You can tell he's a genius cause of his eccentricities.
I saw the Empire Film Awards a couple of weeks back and he gave his Best Director acceptance speech on a rollercoaster!
I've never seen anything like it before