Tag: Peter Jackson (21-26 of 26)

May 31 2010 12:07 AM ET

Why Guillermo del Toro left 'The Hobbit' -- and Peter Jackson will not replace him as director

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Jackson-Hobbit_320.jpg Image Credit: Barry King/FilmMagic.com; Kristian Dowling/WireImage.comOver the last four years, there has scarcely been another project in Hollywood that has been more highly anticipated — and has weathered more back-room corporate wrangling — than The Hobbit. So when filmmaker Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy) announced today that he was dropping out of directing the two films planned for J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary preamble to The Lord of the Rings, the news served as both a shock to fans and yet another possible casualty in the sad ongoing saga of MGM Studios.

As Del Toro (pictured, right) and The Hobbit producer Peter Jackson (pictured, left) explained to LOTR fansite TheOneRing.net, the two Hobbit films are still slated for release in Dec. 2012 and Dec. 2013. And Del Toro is still collaborating on the screenplay with Jackson and his LOTR co-screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. But why did Del Toro walk away from one of the most highly coveted director’s chairs in modern cinema? And who could possibly step in to replace him? (Read on for why it won’t be Peter Jackson.) READ FULL STORY »

Dec 13 2009 01:21 PM ET

Critics down on 'Lovely Bones,' but swoon for star Saoirse Ronan

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The Lovely Bones has finally made it into theaters — well, three theaters; it’s in limited release until Christmas. It opened strong, pulling in $116,000 for a per-screen average of just under $39,000. If the movie, an adaptation of Alice Sebold’s bestseller, holds up over the coming weeks, it’ll be thanks to the many, many fans of the novel, and to the legions of die-hard devotees of director Peter Jackson.

Because Bones certainly won’t be benefiting from an abundance of critical love. For the first time since his days of making gross-out, low-budget wonders like Meet the Feebles, Jackson earned a round of reviews that were lukewarm at best, scathing at worst. The most widespread gripe? That the Oscar-sweeping Lord of the Rings guru indulged too much in CGI at the expense of emotion and consistent storytelling. (See EW’s review by Lisa Schwarzbaum here).

But even the harshest reviews (like Variety’s — ouch!) have pointed out at least one positive: the brilliance of lead actress Saoirse Ronan (above, with costar Rose McIver). The New York Times applauded her “unnerving self-assurance and winning vivacity,” while The Los Angeles Times went even further, arguing that Jackson’s “best move by far was casting young Irish actress Saoirse Ronan, Oscar-nominated for her compelling role in Atonement, as the murdered Susie Salmon. An enormously gifted performer, Ronan is the only element of the film that is exactly as it should be, bringing naturalness, honesty and radiance to the part of a young woman just on the cusp of life.” Click on over to The Hollywood Reporter, Newsweek, and Slate, where you’ll find similar adulation for Ronan.

I’ll leave it to Dave Karger to ponder whether Ronan’s got enough critical affection to snag an Oscar nom. I’m hoping she will. She’s a prodigiously talented actress and a cool kid to boot, mercifully devoid of any of that weird, overly precious kid-actor stuff that plagues so many youngsters in Hollywood. (Maybe it’s ’cause she lives in her native Ireland, a good 6,000 miles away from the ego-inflating bubble of Tinseltown?) Plus, she can spoof Britney Spears as well as any SNL-er. Don’t believe me? Check out the embedded clip below. It’s from Amy Heckerling’s I Could Never Be Your Women, which she shot when she was barely out of elementary school.

Awesome, right?

So are you pulling for young Ms. Ronan, PopWatchers? What about Mr. Jackson? Do you love him enough to ignore reviews? Will you see The Lovely Bones?

Oct 10 2009 11:47 AM ET

'Fellowship of the Ring' at Radio City Music Hall: High-class geekery

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Tags: , , , , , , About Last Night, Movies

lord-of-the-rings_l1Last night, NYC’s Radio City Music Hall played host to a screening of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. Which would’ve been awesome enough by itself, given that Radio City is a fantastic place to see a film, and I haven’t seen Fellowship on a big screen since its initial 2001 release. But what made it super special was that Howard Shore’s score was performed, live, by a 300-person orchestra, along with a massive choir. READ FULL STORY »

Aug 17 2009 02:44 PM ET

'District 9' sequel seems inevitable

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district-9-sequel_lLike lots of you, I saw District 9 this weekend, and while I was not quite as gung-ho about it as everyone else seemed to be, there’s no way around the fact that D9 is destined for a sequel, ASAP. The rest of this post contains spoilers, so if you don’t know your prawns from your pieholes, perhaps save this to read at a later date. READ FULL STORY »

Aug 11 2009 12:30 PM ET

Here's what the 'Halo' movie would've looked like, if the 'District 9' director had his way

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As rumors float around the Internet about Steven Spielberg’s interest in making a movie based on Microsoft’s massive Halo videogame series, it’s worth taking a look back at what Neill Blomkamp — the director of the full-of-awesome District 9, and Peter Jackson’s handpicked choice to shoot the long-aborted Halo flick — would’ve done with the material. Lucky for us, the seven-minute short Blomkamp made to show what it’d look like is still online…

Not that I don’t think Spielberg could work magic with Halo — Saving Private Ryan meets War of the Worlds comes to mind — but Blomkamp seems to have had it all figured out.

What do you think? Spielberg or Blomkamp? Or neither? Heck, should there even be a Halo movie, or is it best left on a gaming platform?

Aug 6 2009 09:00 AM ET

Which of Peter Jackson's plethora of upcoming projects are you most excited for?

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Dam-Busters_lIt’s hard to believe that the last time we had a big-screen feature from Peter Jackson was his masterful take on the classic King Kong in 2005. Now, thankfully, mercifully, he’s back, this time as producer for what could be this summer’s biggest hit, the alien flick District 9.

So what can we look forward to in the coming months (and years) from Jackson? There’s the trailer for The Lovely Bones now available to watch/weep at on the Internet, and it’s hard not to have a little bias (heck, it’s atop our Must List) towards this winter’s highly anticipated adaptation of Alice Sebold’s cherished novel. However, the afterlife drama, starring Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz, is hardly the only thing on writer/director/producer/Renaissance Man Peter Jackson’s agenda. He’s also teamed up with Steven Spielberg for the animated feature The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (expected to hit U.S. theaters in late 2011), based on the internationally beloved comic strip, featuring the voices of, Daniel Craig and Jamie Bell, among others. There’s also the Jackson-produced remake (possibly in 3-D!) of the 1955 British World War II film The Dam Busters and a little project you may have heard ofcalled The Hobbit (Jackson let us in on the progress of the movies at this year’s Comic-Con).

So, PopWatchers, which of Jackson’s forthcoming features are you most looking forward to? Let us know in the poll below, and don’t forget, for more behind-the-scenes scoop on this summer’s hottest flick, District 9, pick up this week’s EW!

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