Peter Jackson and New Line kiss, make up
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But Jackson won't be directing either of the Hobbit films, instead he'll produce while exerting creative control over the projects. I find it kind of strange that any director would sign on without having his or her run of the ship, especially with something this high profile. I mean yeah, we've all heard that Sam Raimi would do it if Jackson produced but does anybody really think one of them is going to take second seat to the other?
The reason for producing rather than directing is actually directly related to who these films were hanging in the balance in the first place. Jackson didn't think New Line was paying out everything it agreed to for him to direct J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, and naturally he sued.
A federal judge had ordered New Line to cough up a couple boxes worth of accounting material for Jackson's lawyers to look at and believe it or not, they simply ignored him -- and ate a hefty fine for it. As far as I've read, those documents were never turned over which leads me to believe the only reason New Line settled was because they knew those documents were going to make Jackson's case for him.
Why in the world these studios are allowed to get away with this stuff and why they don't just pay people fairly instead of trying to continually cheat their way to success is beyond me.
So while this lawsuit was going on, Jackson bought the rights to what looks to be an extremely boring adaptation of a book and will obviously be busy doing that while the Hobbit features are in production. That's shooting now he has other work lined up later for Spielberg.
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