Peter Jackson's KING KONG

[Gold Trumpet]

but with The Hobbit going to go into production

Did I miss something?

I think he's confirmed that he's directing Lovely Bones next. Which if done correctly will be great, as it's in the same vein as Heavenly Creatures (the ending of the book is really sappy though). I don't think Kong will be anything more than a really fun ride, and Jackson himself has admitted as much when he said it wasn't going to win any Oscars.

I've heard many numerous projects on a smaller scale, but the only confirmed one really was The Hobbit.

[Pozer]

Paging Mr. MacGuffin!

[Ghostboy]

No need to page MacGuffin. The Hobbit was never confirmed, only rumored, and long ago at that. I'm not even sure if the rights issues ever got resolved.

The only other thing Jackson is attached to is Halo, and that's only as executive producer.

[Gold Trumpet]

OK, a confirmation of his "plans"

Jackson Confirms "Hobbit" Plans
Posted:   Sunday March 13th, 2005 8:51pm
Source:   The BBC
Author:   Garth Franklin


 
"Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson has said that it will be up to four years before he starts work on a film version of "The Hobbit" according to British newscaster The BBC.

The Oscar winner said on arecent visit to Sydney that there was a "desire" to make it, but not before lengthy negotiations were conducted. "I think it's gonna be a lot of lawyers sitting in a room trying to thrash out a deal before it will ever happen," he told the press.

As of now, the rights to JRR Tolkien's book are split between two major film studios - New Line and MGM. Jackson thought that the sale of MGM studios to the Sony Corporation would cast further uncertainty on the project. Jackson is currently working on a remake of "King Kong" and has also committed to making a film version of "Lovely Bones", based on the best-selling book by Alice Sebold.

[polkablues]

So in other words, don't bet money on it.

[modage]

well, as ghostboy and i said the lovely bones is likely his NEXT project and beyond that who knows?  and the lord of the rings seems as out of place in his filmography as heavenly creatures does, so why have you pegged him as that guy?

[Gold Trumpet]

It's a responce to not really peg, but identify. It seems with LOTR, he has major blockbuster epics in his future. King Kong has already been made and then The Hobbit, which I believe he will make. Rights issues on acquiring the story by New Line was cleared up when Sony bought out MGM, right? With his popularity on LOTR, is it not possible that if King Kong is a major success, he will not continue to explore blockbuster films? I think he will. He's been given an Oscar and popularity already.

I guess the basic argument is I don't see much success in his doing blockbuster movies. LOTR was that awful to me. It does come down to a personal opinion. His adaptation of The Lovely Bones, which I'll likely read before he makes it, will be interesting.

[Ghostboy]

I think the thing to also consider is that, thus far, he's only made movies he wants to make. LOTR and King Kong were both longstanding passion projects. In that sense, they're no more different from Heavenly Creatures than Dead Alive was. The Lovely Bones seems to continue this trend, and as long as he's not making movies other people want him to make, I'll continue to be supportive of whatever he does. If that includes The Hobbit (which I nonetheless doubt he'll direct anytime soon), great. If it's another low budget splatter film, that's great too. Thus far, his enthusiasm for his projects has kept them all as exciting as they are wildly different.

[Pozer]

Couldn't of said it better.  Good note to end on.

[edison]

October 27, 2005
A Big Gorilla Weighs In
By SHARON WAXMAN
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 26 - In hiring Peter Jackson, the Oscar-winning director of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, to remake the monster classic "King Kong," Universal Pictures took a daring leap, paying him $20 million to direct, produce and be the co-writer of the film.

With seven weeks to go before the movie's release, the risks are becoming clearer. After seeing a version of the film in late September at Mr. Jackson's studio in New Zealand, Universal executives agreed to release "King Kong" at a length of three hours.

The film is substantially longer than Universal had anticipated and presents dual obstacles: the extra length has helped increase the budget by a third, to $207 million, while requiring the studio, owned by General Electric, to reach for the kind of long-term audience interest that made hits out of three-hour movies like "Titanic" and the films in Mr. Jackson's "Rings" trilogy.

Hollywood blockbusters have increasingly relied on big releases that bring in as much as half of their ticket sales on the first weekend. But long films receive far fewer showings per day, and the most successful ones, like "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001) by Mr. Jackson, which took in $315 million at the domestic box office for New Line Cinema, have remained in theaters for well over half a year.

The film industry and Universal could use a big seller.

Hollywood has been struggling this year at the box office, with overall revenue down more than half a billion dollars, about 8 percent, from last year's total, according to Box Office Mojo, an online tracking service. Industry experts attribute the decline to a migration of audiences to other forms of electronic entertainment, whether television, DVD's, video games or the Internet. Universal has had a mediocre year at the box office. The studio had a hit in the summer with the comedy "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," but has endured disappointments, like the drama "Cinderella Man," and has had lackluster results with films like "The Perfect Man," "Kicking and Screaming" and "Doom," which opened last week to a tepid $15 million.

Asked about the length of "King Kong," Universal executives said they saw it as an advantage in an era when jaded moviegoers are hungering for something extraordinary.

"This is a three-hour feast of an event," said Marc Shmuger, vice chairman of Universal Pictures, who described the film as a tragic love story between the ape and Naomi Watts, who plays Ann Darrow, an actress. "I've never come close to seeing an artist working at this level."

Set for release on Dec. 14, "King Kong" retells the classic beauty-and-the-beast tale first filmed in 1933, with its lasting image of Kong atop the Empire State Building, and remade in 1976. Along with Ms. Watts, it stars Jack Black, Adrien Brody and a 25-foot, computer-animated gorilla.

This time around, the picture depends upon another oversize talent in the person of Mr. Jackson, who was granted an unusual degree of control at a time when studios are trimming costs and tightening their grips on most productions. Not only did Mr. Jackson produce and direct, and also write with his longtime partner, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens, but his companies Weta Digital and Weta Workshop also created the physical and computer special effects in the film at Mr. Jackson's studio in New Zealand.

Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount took a risk in granting the director James Cameron a similar degree of control over his famously overbudget 1997 film "Titanic," and eventually came up winners. In that case, Mr. Cameron's three-hour epic, a love story set in the midst of the ship's sinking, went on to break box-office records and win 11 Oscars. With "King Kong," Universal executives say they are convinced that they have an epic of comparable worth, even though they were surprised by the length.

"I anticipated it would be long, but not this long," the Universal chairwoman, Stacey Snider, said. As recently as late September, she expected about two hours and 40 minutes, she said. But on Wednesday she expressed delight with the picture she's got: "This is a masterpiece. I can't wait to unveil it."

The increased length, Ms. Snider said, means that the movie will cost $32 million more than planned, adding to expenses that had already gone up $25 million from an original $150 million production budget.

Who will pay for these budget overruns has been the subject of intense negotiations over the last two weeks, with representatives of the studio and the director haggling over who was responsible, according to those involved in the negotiations.

Ms. Snider said that as of Wednesday, all had been resolved, with the studio more or less splitting the $32 million expense with Mr. Jackson.

In an e-mail message, Mr. Jackson appeared to disagree, saying instead that he would be paying for those expenditures, which were mainly associated with extra digital-effects shots. Referring to his partner, Ms. Walsh, Mr. Jackson wrote: "Since Fran and I believed in the three-hour cut and wanted to take responsibility for the extra length, we offered to pay for these extra shots ourselves. That's what we're doing." He did not say how much that would be, but said the extra effects shot would cost "considerably below $32 million."

A spokesman for Universal responded, "We are working together to cover overages."

In granting Mr. Jackson immense latitude, Universal relied not just on his skills, but also a huge fan base, much of which has followed the production through the director's frequent communications on a Web site, www.kongisking.net.

But few elements of the film have been seen by the larger public, and even Universal executives saw a finished version of King Kong's face - with its expressive eyes, broadly fierce nose and mane of computer-generated hair - only in recent days.

Universal lost an opportunity to capitalize on a "Kong" revenue stream when an anticipated deal to release the film on Imax screens in December, at the same time the movie would appear in regular theaters, failed to materialize, and Imax chose to show Warner Brothers' new "Harry Potter" film, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."

"We think 'King Kong' will be a big movie," Richard L. Gelfond, co-chairman of Imax, said, "but unfortunately we could not agree on deal terms, including the box-office split."

Ms. Snider said Imax could not guarantee space in its theaters at the time of Kong's release, and acknowledged that both the studio and Mr. Jackson were disappointed.

A spokeswoman for NBC Universal said Bob Wright, the chairman, has been told of the rising cost and length of "King Kong." "Bob is more than aware of what is going on with this production and other major productions, and he has enormous confidence in the leadership team at Universal Studios," said the spokeswoman, Anna Perez.

Ms. Snider said she did not think the three-hour length would be an obstacle for moviegoers. Three-hour epics, she said, are Mr. Jackson's "brand."

Exhibitors have long complained that very long films make it harder to draw audiences, though in this difficult year at the box office, they have complained louder about not having enough good films to show. Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, which tracks the box office for theater owners, agreed that long movies posed problems. "But if it's a really fine film, it won't be a detriment to its success," he said.

[modage]

wow, three hours.  if this flops its going to flop HUGE.

[Ravi]

It will open big, but nobody knows right now if people will like it enough to make it a hit.  It doesn't have the built-in audience LOTR had, though it does have name recognition.  And three hours?  I can see how the LOTR films were long, but this?  I don't know, folks...

[The Perineum Falcon]

Yeah... 3 hours is a bad idea.

[edison]

http://www.kingkongjump.com/

[Gamblour.]

Ok maybe i don't know much about money or the economy or audiences but, my logic is telling me this....

"The film industry needs a big seller."

That's true, but a movie with a $207 million budget will be hard to break even, correct? That's a lot of money, let alone a lot to profit from. I don't think this film will do mindblowingly well, but many will go to it. If many go to this, just enough to break even, but then neglect seeing all the other movies, then won't everything but this essentially lose money?? Everyone's flocking to this and not seeing anything else?