With the exception of the (awful) “The Lovely Bones,” Peter Jackson has spend well over a decade creating some of the biggest screen spectacles ever at the multiplex. Of course, his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy was a massive blockbuster hit and Oscar-winning saga, and he’s currently in the midst of trying to match that feat with his “The Hobbit” films. And the filmmaker also took time to tell the story of “King Kong” all over again, albeit in his trademark, lengthy and epic style. But it looks like Jackson is now ready to return to modestly sized movies.
Speaking with The New Zealand Herald, Jackson shared that he wants to get off the tentpole train. “We have got a few bits and pieces that we are working on, Fran [Walsh] and I. The things that we are most excited about are some New Zealand stories. We just want to step off the Hollywood blockbuster thing for a while and we’ve had a few New Zealand stories in line for a while that we think would make great films. The ‘Heavenly Creatures‘ mode really,” he said. “But one thing has led to another and we have never had time. We’ve made a conscious decision that in the limited years we have left to make movies to tell some New Zealand stories.”
Indeed, time is weighing heavily on the 51-year-old filmmaker who sees his window for making movies only getting smaller. “In some respects in terms of my remaining film-making career this was a five-year chunk that was kind of taken out of it unexpectedly. My future is five years less than I thought it was,” he said of working on “The Hobbit.” “I thought if I am going to do that I am actually going to enjoy it. I am going to have fun. Hopefully, that is reflected on the screen, too.”
So what could those smaller movies be? Well, Jackson doesn’t say and he hasn’t attached himself to much at all either, though at one point he was thinking about making a film about the Battle Of Gallipoli. But is that something in “Heavenly Creatures” mode? Doesn’t seem like it. And what of the “Tintin” series, and the second movie which he is theoretically supposed to direct?
Many questions to be answered but as the press machine gears up for the release of “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” on December 13th, perhaps we’ll get a better idea.