New LotR Movies on the Horizon: Could Peter Jackson Be Back in the Director's Chair?
As you probably already know, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has recently announced a deal to make "multiple" new movies based on J. R. R. Tolkien books.
This announcement is pretty much all we know for certain about the project so far – neither movie names, nor names of anyone who's going to be involved with the project, were announced.
With no filmmakers associated with the project for now, the natural questions arise: would Peter Jackson, famed for directing two movie trilogies based on Tolkien's books, be involved with the new movies, and if not, what does he think about the project?
And according to Deadline, Peter Jackson and his writing partners, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, remain non-committal so far, saying nothing definitive but keeping up the general air of positivity and approval.
"Warner Brothers and Embracer have kept us in the loop every step of the way," they've explained. "We look forward to speaking with them further to hear their vision for the franchise moving forward."
Jackson and his associates were not involved in any way with Amazon's The Rings of Power TV series, which reception remains controversial to say the least.
So it stands to reason that getting Jackson's stamp of approval is important for a new Tolkien-related project.
Whether New Line Cinema and Warner Bros Pictures are going to go farther than soliciting his opinions, and actually invite Peter Jackson and his team to make the new movies remains to be seen.
If they intend to merely re-adapt The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, this option is right out. However as Warner Bros Pictures Group co-chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy said:
"But for all the scope and detail lovingly packed into the two trilogies, the vast, complex and dazzling universe dreamed up by J.R.R. Tolkien remains largely unexplored on film."
Which seems to indicate a desire to create some sort of Middle-earth Expanded Cinematic Universe. Not unlike what The Rings of Power tried to do, except actually good.
In which case inviting Jackson back into the director's chair appears to be a quite logical, "safe" move, even though The Hobbit trilogy suggests that without enough book material to work with he cannot produce something matching the quality of The Lord of the Rings movies.