As the Harvey Weinstein controversy continues, many people are finally feeling safe to come clean about some of the mogul’s behind-the-scenes antics. While many of those situations involved inappropriate behavior with females, a new book details how the Hollywood heavyweight tried to derail Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and replace the director with none other than Quentin Tarantino.
According to the new book by author Ian Nathan (via The Guardian), the drama stems from Weinstein’s insistence that “Lord of the Rings” be one, streamlined feature film instead of the series that Jackson was developing. Weinstein was concerned that Jackson “wasted” $12 million on developing multiple films when he only wanted one.
And apparently, to get Jackson to follow his orders, Weinstein threatened to replace the then-relatively unknown director with “Pulp Fiction” filmmaker Tarantino. “Harvey was like, ‘you’re either doing this or you’re not. You’re out. And I got Quentin ready to direct it’,” Ken Kamins, a producer who worked for Weinstein, said.
Peter Jackson confirms this account by showing a memo from 1998 that was written by Jack Lechner, a development head at Miramax, that gave the director “a more radical, streamlined approach” to tell the story in one film.
“It was literally guaranteed to disappoint every single person that has read that book,” Jackson told Nathan.
“We’d rather have our lives and do our films and not deal with all this crap anymore. Tell Harvey to go ahead and make his film and good luck,” Jackson said to Weinstein’s producer Kamins.
Weinstein was eventually persuaded to allow Jackson to go out and sell his pitch for a multiple-film series, which was obviously picked up by New Line Cinema. And the rest is history, as the series featured three critically-acclaimed blockbuster films that launched Jackson’s career into the stratosphere and spawned an additional prequel trilogy.
However, one can’t help but imagine what a single film “Lord of the Rings” directed by Quentin Tarantino would look like.