Peter Jackson leaves 'The Hobbit'

The man behind the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy will no longer be directing their prequel.

Nov 20 2006

It's a sad day for Tolkien fans around the world – Peter Jackson has announced that he and his company, Wingnut Films, will not be directing 'The Hobbit'. The New Zealand filmmaker who breathed life into Middle Earth with his 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy emailed the news to the JRR Tolkien fan site theonering.net over the weekend.

Jackson said that the film's studio, New Line, made the decision after a disagreement over profits from the 'LOTR' trilogy. New Line, along with MGM, also plans to film another prequel to 'LOTR' without the involvement of Jackson and his company.

In his email to theonering.net, the director wrote 'Several years ago, [New Line's] Mark Ordesky told us that New Line have rights to make not just 'The Hobbit' but a second 'LOTR' prequel, covering the events leading up to those depicted in 'LOTR'. Since then, we've always assumed that we would be asked to make 'The Hobbit' and possibly this second film, back to back, as we did the original movies.

'We've assumed that we would possibly get started on development and design next year, whilst filming 'The Lovely Bones'. We even had a meeting planned with MGM executives to talk through our schedule. However last week, Mark Ordesky called Ken and told him that New Line would no longer be requiring our services on 'The Hobbit' and the 'LOTR' prequel.'

With admirable restraint, Jackson concluded 'This outcome is not what we anticipated or wanted, but neither do we see any positive value in bitterness and rancour. We now have no choice but to let the idea of a film of 'The Hobbit' go and move forward with other projects.'