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JACKSON OUT AS HOBBIT DIRECTOR Monday, November 20 2006 
Shocking
fans
who
had
assumed
that
director
Peter
Jackson,
who
was
responsible
for
the
Lord
of
the
Rings
trilogy,
would
direct
The
Hobbit
--
a
kind
of
prequel
to
those
films
--
and
another
Lord
of
the
Rings
epic,
Jackson
said
on
theonering.net
website
Sunday
that
he
had
been
advised
by
New
Line
that
the
studio
"would
no
longer
be
requiring
our
services
on
The
Hobbit
...
[and]
was
now
actively
looking
to
hire
another
(more)HALO WON'T SHINE Tuesday, October 31 2006 
Although
Microsoft's
Wingnut
Films
and
director
Peter
Jackson's
Weta
studios
had
said
that
they
would
continue
pre-production
work
on
Halo,
a
movie
based
on
the
video
game,
after
Universal
and
20th
Century
Fox
backed
out
of
co-financing
it,
Jackson
and
Microsoft
announced
today
(Tuesday)
that
they
had
changed
their
minds
and
were
shutting
down
the
film
--
at
least
temporarily.
In
a
statement,
they
said
that
they
had
agreed
to
wait
until
backing
was
in
(more) |
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As Lord of the Rings fans mounted a protest following word that New Line had dropped Peter Jackson from consideration as director of The Hobbit and another Lord of the Rings prequel, producer Saul Zaentz has given assurances that Jackson will indeed direct the two films. A German website, Elbenwald.de, posted an interview with Zaentz, who acquired the rights to the works of the late Rings writer, J.R.R. Tolkien, in 1976 (the Saul Zaentz Company owns Tolkien Enterprises), in which Zaentz says, "It will definitely be shot by Peter Jackson. ... Next year The Hobbit rights will fall back to my company. I suppose that Peter will wait because he knows that he will make the best deal with us. And he is fed up with the studios: to get his profit share on the Rings trilogy he had to sue New Line. With us, in contrast, he knows that he will be paid fairly and artistically supported without reservation."
