Photo: Gregg DeGuire/WireImage
The Lord of the Rings' epic tales of adventure were so extraordinary that even directorPeter Jacksonwanted to get the full experience like the viewers.
“When we didThe Lord of the Ringsmovies I always felt I was the unlucky person who never got to see as a coming-out-of-the-blue film,” Jackson, 60, recently toldTheHollywood Reporter.
“By the time there were screenings, I was immersed in it for five or six years. It was such a loss for me not to be able to see them like everyone else,” he continued, before adding that he considered a pretty extreme measure.
“I actually did seriously consider going to some hypnotherapy guy to hypnotize me to make me forget about the films and the work I had done over the last six or seven years so I could sit and enjoy them,” Jackson continued.
Jackson did not pursue hypnosis, but he may be able to enjoyThe Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which premieres globally this September on Prime Video, as he has no affiliation with the upcoming fantasy series.
But that wasn’t of his choosing, he stated in an interview withThe Hollywood Reporter’sAwards Chatterpodcastlast Thursday.
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The Academy Award-winning director said that Amazon left him hanging after holding initial conversations tied to him getting onboard with the upcomingLord of the Ringsprequel series.
“They asked me if I wanted to be involved — [writer-producer Fran Walsh] and I — and I said, ‘That’s an impossible question to answer without seeing a script,'” Jackson said in the interview.
And though he detailed that Amazon then promised to send the scripts to Jackson and Walsh as soon as they were done, the filmmaker explained, “The scripts never showed up. That’s the last thing I heard.”
Jackson, whotopped theForbes’ Highest-Paid Entertainer List of 2022, said he holds no ill will towards Amazon, however — “No complaints at all,” he said — and he even noted that he’s looking forward to watching the upcoming series.
“I’ll be watching it,” he said. “I’m not the sort of guy who wishes ill will. Filmmaking is hard enough.”
The series is set thousands of years before the events ofThe HobbitandThe Lord of the Rings,movies —before those storied rings were even forged. It’s based on a lesser-known part of author J.R.R. Tolkein’s Middle-earth lore:the Second Age.
Among the characters waging the epic war of good and evil are Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), Elrond (Robert Aramayo) and High King Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker); Harfoots Marigold Brandyfoot (Sara Zwangobani), Elanor ‘Nori’ Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh), Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards) and Sadoc Burrows (Sir Lenny Henry); the Dwarves King Durin III (Peter Mullan) and Prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur), as well as The Stranger (Daniel Weyman), Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) and Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova).
The Rings of Powerhas a price tag estimated at $450 million, according toAOL, making it Amazon’s most expensive project ever.
source: people.com
