One of the more comical movie-web incidents this weekend was watching Deadline on the topic of “The Hobbit.” The site has broken countless stories this week that alone warrant enough bragging rights for months, but for some reason felt the need to childishly “toldja!” chest-puff about “The Hobbit,” mostly because the NY and L.A. Times both advanced the story they had originally broke (NY Times noted the film would be shot in 3D, the LAT noted that Jackson’s deal was almost done).
Deadline basically pooh-poohed both reports and whined, “we basically told you all this first” and mocked the “breathless reports.” Doubly comical was watching other Internet reports take the Deadlines piece as some sort of official word of god that Peter Jackson’s directing deal with the picture was signed, sealed and delivered. Well, it’s not. And while the MGM/Spyglass situation is resolving itself as we speak — and therefore paving the way for “The Hobbit” to move forward — and Jackson will more than likely complete his deal to helm the two (allegedly $500-million-costing) films, that deal is not done and nowhere in the Deadline cry-a-river piece did it say that.
Jackson himself has essentially confirmed all this in a interview with Empire.
“We haven’t got a greenlight yet. We’re still waiting. Things still seem to be inching closer to some sort of happy place. I keep hearing that so many times now I’ve stopped tuning into it. We’ve seen these reports before, reports saying there was going to be a greenlight in a couple of days — well, a week’s gone by and there isn’t one. You can’t believe everything you read. There is only one thing you want to believe and that’s when the studio announces a greenlight. As far as I’m aware that’s not going to be today. I keep hearing positive things. Everyone’s working very hard. There’s a lot of people at Warner Bros. who are working around the clock trying to maneuver through the MGM complexities. MGM is a company that is about to go bankrupt and in a way they are about to take ‘The Hobbit’ into bankruptcy hell with them when they go down. Warners are trying to extract The Hobbit out of the bankruptcy hell before it happens. It is just so complicated I can’t even put my head into it. It’s all to do with American copyright laws, bankruptcy laws. A lot of Warner Bros. lawyers are working round the clock at the moment trying to make it happen so let’s see.”
Toldja, huh? Yes, all of this is likely going to resolve itself, but egg on all your faces for being d-bags about it. Meanwhile, yes, Jackson still has a passion for all things Hobbiton, but noted he’s currently not officially the director yet.
“Oh yeah, for sure. I’m certainly happy to be involved. At the moment, I’m a writer and a producer on it. We’ll see. Warner Bros. have been very, very good, very loyal and very supportive and I want to do what’s right for them first and foremost because I’ve got a responsibility to look after their investment. And it’s also something I am actually excited about so we’ll see what happens. I’ve learnt never to get that excited until something is greenlit because there is a moment when you commit emotionally to a project and you give everything, your heart and soul. At that point, once you’ve done that and it doesn’t happen, it’s the most horrible thing in the world outside of stuff with your family. It’s the worst experience ever, to have a film fall over that you’ve committed 100% to. I always just protect myself and don’t fully commit until I know for sure that it’s happening. Then it gets my 100% commitment.”
See you in 2012 (or next week when we hear more casting rumors).