Peter Jackson vs. New Line
The king of The Lord of the Rings is snarled in a Kong-sized lawsuit with Rings's studio. The Hobbit hangs in the balance. In this excerpt from March 2007's Notes From the Dream Factory, Tom Roston investigates.
by Tom Roston
New Line's option to make The Hobbit expires in 2009; maybe they don't think Peter Jackson can get the movie made in time. The company is also already turning its attention to another mega-budgeted fantasy franchise, the His Dark Materials trilogy. But the studio's motivations became more clear in January, when New Line co-CEO Robert Shaye couldn't refrain from a retort.
"I do not want to make a movie with somebody who is suing me. It will never happen during my watch," he told Sci Fi Wire, and then referred to Jackson as "misinformed" and "myopic."
Whoa. Such a personal outburst (reminiscent of Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone's public berating of Tom Cruise is surprising, because when hundreds of millions of dollars of potential profit are left on the table over a tiff, you need to weigh the impact on your shareholders (New Line is owned by publicly traded Time Warner). And to think it began with the simple request for an audit.
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