I guess this is perhaps why New Line didn't want to hang around for Jackson any longer

I think its more Jackson not being prepared to work with New Line again given he had to sue them for his royalties. Trying to stiff the person who created a cash cow for you is not exactly conducive to a harmonious working relationship.

Pretty much yeah - my guess is that even though New Line are legally entitled to make The Hobbit prior to the license revoking, given this news that PJ will film it with Tolkien Enterprises (assuming he confirms it, of course) will pretty much scupper that.
After all, it's the Jackson/WETA name that would put bums on seats rather than the New Line name. I mean, which would you go to see? A rush-job put out so NL could monopolize on the license before it expired, or a piece where Jackson *and* Tolkien Enterprises paid the proper respect to the IP? Thanks for the offer of a Big Mac, but I don't want to ruin my appetite.

It never ceases to amaze me when people are so incredibly short-sighted. Given that Peter Jackson created a trilogy that was /hugely/ successful, and that the vast majority of people associate his name with the films rather than New Line (I could not have told you the film company associated with LotR [or any film, for that matter] had you asked), what makes more sense:

1) "Let's try and screw him for his royalties, but in the process piss him off so he'll never work for us again."

or

2) "Let's be really nice to him so he'll keep making these financially successful films for us."

How far up your arse does head need to be for 1) to see like the best option?

Whether New Line would do this depends entirely on their prediction of profit vs loss.

      Obviously they won't do it then, since apparently they lost so much money with LOtR...which is why they don't want to pay PJ in the first place...

I'd say that a large part of the reason for not putting Gimli in a more warrior role had a lot to do with the fact that they had to shoot all of his scenes seperately, and getting the shot of Rhys-Davies lined up perfectly with the shot of the other main characters *and* the CGI monsters would be difficult. And then you have the scenes where the monsters are actors and that becomes even harder because fight scenes are not easy to duplicate.

I always found it kind of funny that the guy playing the dwarf was basically the biggest one in the movie. Besides, who says warriors can't also be something of a comic figure? After so many times of someone wanting to split your skull, it becomes something you start to have a bit of a sense of humor about - otherwise you crack =]

The books were written in the 30s and 40s. I thought they would be in the public domain by now?

I missed Tom Bombadil and the other leftout's as well, but face it he would look stupid on film :)

    I didn't miss Tom at all - that would have been silly in a film. I just didn't like all the stuff they did to Faramir - I mean come on the ONLY reason they "went back to Osgiliath" was to allow for more special effects; and the stupid interaction with Frodo, Sam and Gollum (nyah nyah he believes ME not YOU) at the end. Faramir and Sam are extremely strong, principled characters, and PJ managed to tarnish that quite well, without actually adding anything to the film.

it appears that New Line still have time to make the Hobbit...it's entirely possible that Jackson could make another version within a year or two...

Given this development, it's more likely that New Line will scrap their version unless they are really shortsighted (which is entirely possible). It's kind of like trying to sell a mediocre 1.2 release of a product when everyone is buzzing about the far superior 2.0 release just ahead.

And with the size of the official LOTR fan club, the fact that New Line has much more marketing muscle won't matter as much; word of mouth will be huge in advertising "Peter and the Ring V2.0".

I'd probably just see both (have an unlimited cinema card for £113 a year, why not use it?), why not? Though since Newline are being such a bunch of selfish bastards by the sounds of things, I may just not watch it in protest... I don't see what's so great about the original LOTR movies that everyone adores Peter Jackson though? Was he the one that gutted the plot, removing and adding bits (bad)? Was he the one that wrote the music (pretty good)? Not that I've watched all the extended versions or read past the second book. The story itself is really dry and empty compared to books like The Hobbit, and most of the Chronicles of Narnia. I'm used to my fantasy stories being fun and interesting though (DiscWorld) :p *wonders how many people will think of him as a heathen heretic*

The countdown doesn't start until the author dies, and Tolkien died in 1973.

And given that Disney died in 1966, this means that the Tolkien copyright will never expire.

PJ's explanation of his treatment of Faramir was simply that the character makes no sense. If he's strong, noble, a warrior and "he wouldn't pick [the ring] up if [he] found it lying in the road", then why the hell doesn't HE take it into Mordor? He's the perfect warrior, he's immune to the Ring's influence and he's not a measly Hobbit.

By having him tempted by the ring, it makes sense that he would see that Frodo is better equipped to bear the ring than he.

Now, I don't know if you agree with that reasoning or not, but it was hardly just random destruction of the book's characters, it was attempting to make a character work on screen. I think that PJ's Faramir is one hell of a lot more believable than Tolkien's.

Yes. Now that Peter Jackson has gotten the taste for budgets in the hundreds of millions, and the artistic vision of 3-hour epics, it's only possible that he can create hits. There's no more chance of risk there. It's money in the bank.