The saga that has become Lord of the Rings director Peter Jacksons life and what he will most likely be remembered for came under fire again this week by Robert Shaye, head of New Line saying Jackson would never work on another New Line film or any other film while Shaye was running things. If your just hearing about this for the first time, Peter Jackson sued New Line of what he calls “questionable” accounting practices. Basically Jackson feels they owe him money and New Line feels they don’t. Pretty simple problem, at least you’d think it was. As far as Shaye is concerned, he seems pretty much done dealing with the matter.

“There’s a kind of arrogance,” Shaye said. “Not that I don’t think Peter is a good filmmaker and that he hasn’t contributed significantly to filmography and made three very good movies. And I don’t even expect him to say ‘thank you’ for having me make it happen and having New Line make it happen. But to think that I, as a functionary in [a] company that has been around for a long time, but is now owned by a very big conglomerate, would care one bit about trying to cheat the guy, … he’s either had very poor counsel or is completely misinformed and myopic to think that I care whether I give him [anything].”

I’m sure they both have logical arguments for basing their issues on, however, the problem I have is neither seems to really care about the movies or the fans, and I hate to break it to Shaye, New Line isn’t the only reason these movies were successful. Jackson contributed a great deal and it’s arguable that without him they wouldn’t have been close to what they were and New Line could be just as easily out of business after taking the chance of bank rolling production of all three from the start. Personally, I think this is a pretty silly fight, Shaye says New Line has paid Jackson millions already.

“He got a quarter of a billion dollars paid to him so far, justifiably, according to contract, completely right, and this guy, who already has received a quarter of a billion dollars, turns around without wanting to have a discussion with us and sues us and refuses to discuss it unless we just give in to his plan. I don’t want to work with that guy anymore. Why would I?”

Well for starters this sounds a lot like New Line being hard asses and refusing to budge out of spite, and Jackson most likely is acting on advice of counsel, albeit that may be bad advice but still. The sad thing is though, the fate of “The Hobbit” ever making it to the big screen rests in the balance of these two. On one hand, New Line apparently owns a limited time option to get the film developed yet Jackson refuses to discuss it until the lawsuit is settled, in essence holding their feet to the fire. But who pays for the arrogance on both sides? Everybody does, I would think.

If New Line employs another director they essentially go back to square one and take an even bigger risk than they did before. The fan base is already skeptical of anyone but Jackson directing the film and even cast members have voiced their concerns as well. Would it do to have someone else play the role of Gandalf or Bilbo? I don’t think so. I think it’s essential to the success of the film to have those characters reprise their roles, but apparently New Line doesn’t see it that way.

Then there’s MGM who owns the distribution rights and appears to be in Jacksons corner and obviously has more money than all of them put together and probably has a significant if not the largest stake in the matter. Why don’t they just pay Jackson off, tell New Line to shut up and get the film rolling? This whole thing is about a few hundred thousand dollars, when they all stand to make millions more off the next set of films. It just sounds ridiculous to me.
Here’s the question. If Jackson doesn’t direct the next set of films, do you think they will be as good or maybe even better? How do you feel, as a fan, about the whole ordeal?