What next for Peter Jackson after ‘The Hobbit’?
The One Ring and the Rings of Power?
After ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and
‘The Hobbit’ trilogies (TLOTR & TH), the One Ring and the Rings are waiting
to be narrated on screen.
Also, people would love to see
the face of the Dark Lord, Sauron, seen so far as a dark spirit and the ever
watchful eye at the top of the Mordor tower.
The J R R Tolkien epics have
given Peter Jackson so far over 16 years of meaningful engagement with
filmmaking and global fame flew home with it. The introduction of his every bio
reads like ‘the film director known for TLOTR and TH trilogies'.
TLOTR trilogies delivered impeccably
from 2001 to 2003 were creativity’s high points in filmmaking. And the
fantastical fantasy narration was a major financial success as well, year after
year. TLOTR movie brought in around $3 Billion in Box Office revenue.
So far, the two instalments in the
TH trilogy have been major financial successes as well with earnings of around
$2 Billion on Box Office, though running low on the critical appreciation that
came with the three movies of TLOTR series culminating in the path-breaking
imagery in ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’. TROTK was nominated
in 11 categories of the Academy Award and won all including the 'Best Picture',
the first fantasy film to achieve this scale.
So far, the two TH movie have
been visually enthralling and pulling on storytelling but the elements that
made TLOTR franchise a class apart are absent. Let's see if Peter Jackson
delivers on this front as well with the final instalment, The Hobbit 3 (The Battle
of the Five Armies) scheduled to release on December 17.
With this, the cinematic
narration of the two most famous works of the J R R Tolkien's legendarium would
be complete.
And there comes the question that
what next for Peter Jackson after TH3, given the fact the Tolkien legendarium
is quite extensive and there are many elements in TLOTR and TH trilogies having
enough of storytelling potential to develop in full-length movies and central
of them is the story of the 'Rings'.
Hope, Jackson would not have been
bugged by the 'fantasy fatigue' after working for so many years delivering
fantasies (his another major directorial success of the intervening period,
King Kong, was again a fantasy adventure epic).
Because the story of the One Ring
the Rings are to be told on the cinema screen and given his passion for and his
run with Tolkien's works, Jackson can deliver again and The Silmarillion is
waiting to meet its extensions from TLOTR and TH.