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Peter Jackson on 'Halo,' 'Hobbit' and 'Dambusters'

by Erik Davis May 26th 2007 // 3:31PM

Filed under: Action, RumorMonger, Fandom, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels

In my opinion Halo is to video games what American Idol is to television, and yet both 20th Century Fox and Universal decided a Halo movie (with newbie director Neill Blomkamp directing) just wasn't going to happen. But that was then, and this is now -- with Halo 3 getting set to demolish the gaming world, Peter Jackson told OnFilm magazine that he expects the project to lift itself out of development hell once Fox and Universal catch a glimpse of the Halo hype first hand. As far as Blomkamp goes; Jackson notes: "We wouldn't want to do it with anyone else. It's Neill's call." But that's not all the man has on his plate; apart from directing The Lovely Bones, Jackson is producing a remake of 1954's The Dam Busters; a project he's kept quiet about for quite some time.

Now, however, there's a director (Christian Rivers) and a writer (Stephen Fry) for Dambusters (or is it Dam Busters?), and Jackson said the project is a lot further along than you would think. Apart from saying that some major announcements about the film would be made in the next few months, Jackson said that Weta Digital is already hard at work creating "computer-generated image tests of Lancasters in flight and attacking dams. Not only that, but they're halfway through building a "full-size replica of a Lancaster bomber." Jackson adds, "It's been full on, but we've been keeping under the radar somewhat. It's one of those projects that requires a lot of prep – you can't sprint out of the gate when you've got to figure out how to build a bunch of Lancasters and do vast amounts of research."

Ah, but what about The Hobbit? Have tensions between Jackson and New Line gotten any better? Is there a chance Jackson might ultimately end up helming? Well, according to the man himself, whatever chances there are seem "remote at this point." Regarding his spat with New Line, Jackson notes: "We have a great many friends at New Line and utmost respect for the risk they took with us and it hurts to be hit with the level of venom directed at us from individuals in that company. It's been a lot more nasty behind the scenes than what's been made public. It's just an accounting dispute at the end of the day, but it makes you wonder what they have to hide." Heck, I don't know about you, but I'd like to see a film about that -- Accounting Dispute, directed by Peter Jackson. Man, imagine what those wizards at Weta would do when creating one of them New Line execs. Also mentioned (and here's something I did not know) was that Jackson shot a 10-minute short film set in World War I using a high def digital camera, and that it screened here last month. Anyone see it?

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Tags: christian rivers, halo, peter jackson, PeterJackson, stephen fry, the dam busters, the hobbit, the lovely bones

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