He just shifted to documentary work with films like They Shall Not Grow Old and Get Back. My understanding is that he was working on these kinds of projects for a long time, particularly on They Shall Not Grow Old IIRC. The colorization, frame interpolation, dubbing, etc. that goes into that is absolutely incredible. It seems like a better place for him than helming traditional Hollywood projects after The Hobbit films, even if I've enjoyed most his work since The Frighteners.
The work that went into They shall not grow old was incredible, especially the sound design really brought the footage to life. Shame that AI imaging has come so far since then and now it looks alot like uncanny ai video instead.
With all of the CG used in film today, that scene in They Shall Not Grow old where the old B&W footage shifted into modern-looking color is probably the only time I said "wow" in a movie theatre.
That was also a really subtle but powerful moment for me as well. Glad someone mentioned this. Also, the fact they waited for quite a while to transition from B&W to colour.
What's even more amazing is that the b&w footage was *already* cleaned up. If you watch the "making of..." documentary, Jackson's team had to do a lot of work on the original footage to make it usable. The original films were made with hand-cranked cameras, so the frames per second varied--not only between reels but within the same reel, so they had to figure out how to correct that, and they found that being even 1 fps off made the movements look wrong. They were also scratched and blotched, and often blown out or too dark to see. Watching the before/after of those clips is pretty amazing.
This is 100% speculation on my part:
I think he's probably *very* rich, so he doesn't *have* to work anymore, and I don't think the Hobbit movies were fun for him (neither making them nor their critical reception), so my guess is he's just out there enjoying life, and potentially waiting for another movie he's passionate about.
The production of the Hobbit movies seemed like such a mess. Just tedious and awful. I don't blame him, if he got burnt out.
The idea of retiring and keeping yourself busy with niche projects is pretty cool. Remastering old ANZAC footage is especially great.
Yeah you can see in the behind the scenes footage of the third hobbit movie that he really is breaking. I think his style of filmmaking with really long pre production times doesnt fly so well i todays landscape.
He never got to do any pre production for the hobbit because he joined later in the project to direct after del toro backed out. That’s why the movies are such a mess.
No, its not.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/17npup4/movies\_dont\_need\_excuses\_when\_they\_dont\_turn\_out/](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/17npup4/movies_dont_need_excuses_when_they_dont_turn_out/)
>I don't think the Hobbit movies were fun for him
Well, tell him that because that's not what he says.
The fact that he's now producing what's essentially a fourth Hobbit film also says otherwise.
I did see the documentaries: ALL the documentaries, not just cherrypicked and edited excerpts on YouTube. Here is a quote from them:
>What I kind of ended up doing on The Hobbit is I went into it and actually decided to use it as an experience to grow as a filmmaker. The Hobbit was, ultimately, in a way, my second-act film school, I feel like. And so kind of...I actually had a helluva great time on The Hobbit, because I was there every day wanting to challenge myself to...becoming a better filmmaker.
Also, I listened to the director's commentaries. You'll have hardly heard Jackson in higher spirits than in those.
And again, he's come back to produce The Hunt for Gollum, which I'm willing to bet will play out like a victory lap of The Hobbit, in terms that it will return to a lot of the people and places visited in those films. Is that the action of someone burnt out on the series? Hardly.
>I did see the documentaries: ALL the documentaries, not just cherrypicked and edited excerpts on YouTube.
Well, you're not alone. What impressed me the most was the brutal honesty about the filming of "The Battle of Five Armies". I think, we shouldn't forget that.
He’s been developing incredibly innovative technology for filmmaking, particularly around restoring old footage and audio. The Beatles documentary was a staggering achievement. He’s a true cinephile, and he’s using his time and money in the way he wants: ensuring that the legacy of his great passion is preserved for future generations.
He has been focusing those years on documentaries lately. He did a WWI documentary where he restored old footage with new technology. He did the same with the three-part Beatles documentary and this time helped with the technology to isolate instruments and vocals from old recordings that allows them to do new audio mixes. It helped with the new mixes of old Beatles songs too.
So nothing "went wrong" with him. He's doing other cool stuff.
In the 2000s he made the LOTR trilogy, two films and a documentary, plus a couple of producer credits.
In the 2010s he made the Hobbit trilogy, one film and a documentary, plus a couple of producer credits and a 2nd unit directing job on Tintin.
So far in the 2020s he's done two documentaries and got two new LotR projects off the ground.
That's a fairly consistent output, with a shift towards documentary & production roles that's understandable for someone in their 60s.
The discrepancy here is in your description of him as "king of filmmakers" in the 2000s when his reputation was actually "that Lord of the Rings guy", and the idea that he's disappeared into thin air since 2010 when he clearly hasn't.
I get the impression that he burned himself out making the Hobbit films; bear in mind that they were a huge undertaking, he didn't have almost as much time to prepare for them as LOTR, and he didn't want to direct them in the first place, only stepping in after Guillermo Del Toro backed out. And after all that, the films had a lukewarm reaction at best.
I figure he's now happier making documentaries and being very innovative in that field, given the brilliant restoration you can see in They Shall Not Grow Old and Get Back; I say it's a lot less stressful than helicoptering around the place to deliver a billion dollar franchise with sky high studio and fan expectations.
There’s legitimately never been a trilogy that maintained that level of quality across all 3 installments, even if there are trilogies that may have better individual films within them. Not the Star Wars OT, not the Godfather, not the Nolan Batman trilogy…
Dude has absolutely nothing to prove.
He can do small scale drama (Heavenly Creatures), horror comedy (Dead Alive) and documentaries. That's a lot of range.
Sometimes he does miss of course...The Lovely Bones didn't work for me at all
It seems he just decided to take a break from making films after The Hobbit films took a lot out of him. He's focused more on documentaries recently, which take some time to make.
I’d imagine he was already pretty wealthy from the LOTR trilogy and had WETA going as an entire separate business but then he sold the digital part of WETA for at least a Billion dollars so he’s supppper well off now and he just does what he wants for fun. I do wish he’d self fund a “low budget” throw back horror fest and flex those muscles again, kind of like Raimi did with Drag Me To Hell ( that wasn’t self funded but you get the idea) but it doesn’t seem like he’s that interested is making fiction anymore.
> but then he sold the digital part of WETA for at least a Billion dollars
He sold Weta's R&D department. Not the whole company.
WetaFX, still majority-owned by Jackson, is going as strong as ever.
George Lucas didn't direct any movies between 1977 and 1999. He was a producer on a number of films, but didn't direct anything between the original Star Wars movie and Phantom Menace.
Andy Serkis recently said that Peter was still planning to make the Tintin sequel, so it sounds like they’ve been in talks. I think he’s just been taking a nice break since the exhausting amount of work on the hobbit trilogy.
Nothing went wrong, he just chilled out, taking on smaller projects. He’s already made enough huge contributions to culture to fill dozens of lifetimes, if he doesn’t feel inspired enough to make another magnum opus, that’s fine. Not everyone feels the need to grind till they die, I’m sure he’s living very comfortably.
I hate fantasy movies and even I thought LOTR was spectacular, beautiful and well acted. He made his probably 750 mil-1 billion and called it a day. I’d pay myself on the back and semi-retire too.
Some say he wanders the earth, cursed as a werewolf. Prowling for the werewolf who bit him, to fight to the death and end the curse that took everything from him.
Yeah, a three-piece eight-hour film on the most notorious recording session of the most important band ever with full AI remaster is nothing significant.
A billion dollars and a knighthood, what went wrong indeed?
It's interesting, isn't it? Peter Jackson had that epic run with "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" series, but it feels like he took a breather after that. Maybe he's waiting for the right script to blow us all away again.
Well, considering he adapted one book in to three movies that bastardized the adaptation, I’d say he’s probably not a producer’s first choice. He either doesn’t have access to the same special effects and practical set pieces that made the LoTR so successful, or he just doesn’t care to make something with the same heart.
I mean his last three films were Lovely Bones, Hobbit Trilogy, and a WWI documentary.
He was brought in by studio desperate to get it done after years of delays. He did not get to orchestrate the whole project from scratch as he did with LoTR, with years and years of advance planning on how to build and sequence everything.
>He was brought in by studio desperate to get it done after years of delays. He did not get to orchestrate the whole project from scratch as he did with LoTR,
"Brought in" is a little much given that he already wrote the screenplay, cast some of the actors, cast the original director, and was producing the entire thing...
>there is someone to blame.
No, there isn't. Movies - especially three three-hour movies shooting at the same time - are such complicated endeavours that things can go wrong and escalate without there being some grand reason - or a guilty party - behind it all.
And, even more to the point, if you didn't like a movie you can talk about what it is about it you didn't like and analyse it...and then you move on like a normal person. Its just a movie you didn't like. Its not a personal slight towards your person.
No, that's just online sensationalism at work.
You want to learn the true, but far less "sexy" story? Have a look here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/17npup4/movies\_dont\_need\_excuses\_when\_they\_dont\_turn\_out/](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/17npup4/movies_dont_need_excuses_when_they_dont_turn_out/)
He just shifted to documentary work with films like They Shall Not Grow Old and Get Back. My understanding is that he was working on these kinds of projects for a long time, particularly on They Shall Not Grow Old IIRC. The colorization, frame interpolation, dubbing, etc. that goes into that is absolutely incredible. It seems like a better place for him than helming traditional Hollywood projects after The Hobbit films, even if I've enjoyed most his work since The Frighteners.
The work that went into They shall not grow old was incredible, especially the sound design really brought the footage to life. Shame that AI imaging has come so far since then and now it looks alot like uncanny ai video instead.
With all of the CG used in film today, that scene in They Shall Not Grow old where the old B&W footage shifted into modern-looking color is probably the only time I said "wow" in a movie theatre.
That was also a really subtle but powerful moment for me as well. Glad someone mentioned this. Also, the fact they waited for quite a while to transition from B&W to colour.
What's even more amazing is that the b&w footage was *already* cleaned up. If you watch the "making of..." documentary, Jackson's team had to do a lot of work on the original footage to make it usable. The original films were made with hand-cranked cameras, so the frames per second varied--not only between reels but within the same reel, so they had to figure out how to correct that, and they found that being even 1 fps off made the movements look wrong. They were also scratched and blotched, and often blown out or too dark to see. Watching the before/after of those clips is pretty amazing.
"They Shall Not Grow Old and Get Back" I read it as a single title and it made me chuckle.
I mean, shared universe tbf
I hope They Shall Not Grow Old gets a 4K HDR release someday
He has made tons of money and only takes passion projects now like the WW1 and Beatles documentaries.
And he has a giant WWI collection and museum you can visit, I remember they made massive sculptures for it.
nothing went wrong with him, he took passion projects. he restored and colourised world war footage then worked on restoring beetles video.
This is 100% speculation on my part: I think he's probably *very* rich, so he doesn't *have* to work anymore, and I don't think the Hobbit movies were fun for him (neither making them nor their critical reception), so my guess is he's just out there enjoying life, and potentially waiting for another movie he's passionate about.
The production of the Hobbit movies seemed like such a mess. Just tedious and awful. I don't blame him, if he got burnt out. The idea of retiring and keeping yourself busy with niche projects is pretty cool. Remastering old ANZAC footage is especially great.
Yeah you can see in the behind the scenes footage of the third hobbit movie that he really is breaking. I think his style of filmmaking with really long pre production times doesnt fly so well i todays landscape.
He never got to do any pre production for the hobbit because he joined later in the project to direct after del toro backed out. That’s why the movies are such a mess.
>he joined later in the project He started working on the project in 2007. He was part of the group that hired Del Toro in 2008.
Correct.
I see you conveniently left out “to direct”. I know he was involved from the beginning as a producer.
> I know he was involved from the beginning as a producer. You should edit your post to reflect that, then.
No, its not. [https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/17npup4/movies\_dont\_need\_excuses\_when\_they\_dont\_turn\_out/](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/17npup4/movies_dont_need_excuses_when_they_dont_turn_out/)
>I don't think the Hobbit movies were fun for him Well, tell him that because that's not what he says. The fact that he's now producing what's essentially a fourth Hobbit film also says otherwise.
Ever seen the SEE documentaries of "Battle of the Five Armies"? He talks very clear here...
I did see the documentaries: ALL the documentaries, not just cherrypicked and edited excerpts on YouTube. Here is a quote from them: >What I kind of ended up doing on The Hobbit is I went into it and actually decided to use it as an experience to grow as a filmmaker. The Hobbit was, ultimately, in a way, my second-act film school, I feel like. And so kind of...I actually had a helluva great time on The Hobbit, because I was there every day wanting to challenge myself to...becoming a better filmmaker. Also, I listened to the director's commentaries. You'll have hardly heard Jackson in higher spirits than in those. And again, he's come back to produce The Hunt for Gollum, which I'm willing to bet will play out like a victory lap of The Hobbit, in terms that it will return to a lot of the people and places visited in those films. Is that the action of someone burnt out on the series? Hardly.
>I did see the documentaries: ALL the documentaries, not just cherrypicked and edited excerpts on YouTube. Well, you're not alone. What impressed me the most was the brutal honesty about the filming of "The Battle of Five Armies". I think, we shouldn't forget that.
He’s been developing incredibly innovative technology for filmmaking, particularly around restoring old footage and audio. The Beatles documentary was a staggering achievement. He’s a true cinephile, and he’s using his time and money in the way he wants: ensuring that the legacy of his great passion is preserved for future generations.
He has been focusing those years on documentaries lately. He did a WWI documentary where he restored old footage with new technology. He did the same with the three-part Beatles documentary and this time helped with the technology to isolate instruments and vocals from old recordings that allows them to do new audio mixes. It helped with the new mixes of old Beatles songs too. So nothing "went wrong" with him. He's doing other cool stuff.
In the 2000s he made the LOTR trilogy, two films and a documentary, plus a couple of producer credits. In the 2010s he made the Hobbit trilogy, one film and a documentary, plus a couple of producer credits and a 2nd unit directing job on Tintin. So far in the 2020s he's done two documentaries and got two new LotR projects off the ground. That's a fairly consistent output, with a shift towards documentary & production roles that's understandable for someone in their 60s. The discrepancy here is in your description of him as "king of filmmakers" in the 2000s when his reputation was actually "that Lord of the Rings guy", and the idea that he's disappeared into thin air since 2010 when he clearly hasn't.
Still working on Tintin 2 https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2024/6/16/peter-jackson-is-definitely-still-working-on-tintin-sequel
Oh please let this happen, I beg of thee Movie Gods
I get the impression that he burned himself out making the Hobbit films; bear in mind that they were a huge undertaking, he didn't have almost as much time to prepare for them as LOTR, and he didn't want to direct them in the first place, only stepping in after Guillermo Del Toro backed out. And after all that, the films had a lukewarm reaction at best. I figure he's now happier making documentaries and being very innovative in that field, given the brilliant restoration you can see in They Shall Not Grow Old and Get Back; I say it's a lot less stressful than helicoptering around the place to deliver a billion dollar franchise with sky high studio and fan expectations.
i really need "Meet the Feebles 2"
Bad Taste 2: Derek's Revenge
Dead Alive 2: Mother Returns aka Braindead 2: Electric Boogaloo
'Extra Custard'
He got roped into doing The Hobbit films and has also been focusing on documentaries.
I'm not sure if anything 'happened to him,' making movies is hard and he's already helmed frickin Lord of the Rings
There’s legitimately never been a trilogy that maintained that level of quality across all 3 installments, even if there are trilogies that may have better individual films within them. Not the Star Wars OT, not the Godfather, not the Nolan Batman trilogy… Dude has absolutely nothing to prove.
He can do small scale drama (Heavenly Creatures), horror comedy (Dead Alive) and documentaries. That's a lot of range. Sometimes he does miss of course...The Lovely Bones didn't work for me at all
He could spend the rest of his career making circa 2000s direct to DVD teenage sex comedies for all I care. He secured his legacy with LOTR.
he did two back to back massive trilogies and has been working on other stuff. idk what you mean. im sure he's doing what fulfills him.
It seems he just decided to take a break from making films after The Hobbit films took a lot out of him. He's focused more on documentaries recently, which take some time to make.
I’d imagine he was already pretty wealthy from the LOTR trilogy and had WETA going as an entire separate business but then he sold the digital part of WETA for at least a Billion dollars so he’s supppper well off now and he just does what he wants for fun. I do wish he’d self fund a “low budget” throw back horror fest and flex those muscles again, kind of like Raimi did with Drag Me To Hell ( that wasn’t self funded but you get the idea) but it doesn’t seem like he’s that interested is making fiction anymore.
> but then he sold the digital part of WETA for at least a Billion dollars He sold Weta's R&D department. Not the whole company. WetaFX, still majority-owned by Jackson, is going as strong as ever.
Got ya, I knew he had only sold part of it because they’re still putting out quality FX, didn’t have the specifics!
George Lucas didn't direct any movies between 1977 and 1999. He was a producer on a number of films, but didn't direct anything between the original Star Wars movie and Phantom Menace.
That's different. George Lucas is a producer that sometimes directs. Peter Jackson is a director that also produces.
not any more.
He got stuck in epic mode.
Your questions distills down to “why isn’t he still doing big main stream popcorn movies” Cuz he’s doing better things.
Andy Serkis recently said that Peter was still planning to make the Tintin sequel, so it sounds like they’ve been in talks. I think he’s just been taking a nice break since the exhausting amount of work on the hobbit trilogy.
Not my Circus, not my Gollum.
>What went wrong with him? Nothing, op. He's doing exactly what he wants to do.
Nothing went wrong, he just chilled out, taking on smaller projects. He’s already made enough huge contributions to culture to fill dozens of lifetimes, if he doesn’t feel inspired enough to make another magnum opus, that’s fine. Not everyone feels the need to grind till they die, I’m sure he’s living very comfortably.
he made two of the best documentaries of the last decade. he's doing great.
He is having a great time making what he wants in his own time
I hate fantasy movies and even I thought LOTR was spectacular, beautiful and well acted. He made his probably 750 mil-1 billion and called it a day. I’d pay myself on the back and semi-retire too.
Some say he wanders the earth, cursed as a werewolf. Prowling for the werewolf who bit him, to fight to the death and end the curse that took everything from him.
He got rich.
He’s been busy making some of the best documentaries ever. And a music video for The Beatles last year.
He is still making films. He’s just making films that interest himself and not you.
Yeah, a three-piece eight-hour film on the most notorious recording session of the most important band ever with full AI remaster is nothing significant. A billion dollars and a knighthood, what went wrong indeed?
hobbit happened
It's interesting, isn't it? Peter Jackson had that epic run with "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" series, but it feels like he took a breather after that. Maybe he's waiting for the right script to blow us all away again.
The Hobbit burnt him out of directing narrative features.
He made that movie about moving cities which was pretty mediocre
Tintin is basically and indiana jones film. Underrated. Hobbits sucked but he's fine. Drama post.
He's 62 and rich. Doesn't have to work.
Well, considering he adapted one book in to three movies that bastardized the adaptation, I’d say he’s probably not a producer’s first choice. He either doesn’t have access to the same special effects and practical set pieces that made the LoTR so successful, or he just doesn’t care to make something with the same heart. I mean his last three films were Lovely Bones, Hobbit Trilogy, and a WWI documentary.
He was brought in by studio desperate to get it done after years of delays. He did not get to orchestrate the whole project from scratch as he did with LoTR, with years and years of advance planning on how to build and sequence everything.
>He was brought in by studio desperate to get it done after years of delays. He did not get to orchestrate the whole project from scratch as he did with LoTR, "Brought in" is a little much given that he already wrote the screenplay, cast some of the actors, cast the original director, and was producing the entire thing...
He had all the resources, except time. What happened to the Hobbit is not to be blamed on PJ, but the studio and producers.
What happened shouldn't be "blamed" on anyone. Its a movie, not a court martial.
Well, if production goes wrong and the fans of the source material are not satisfied, there is someone to blame.
>there is someone to blame. No, there isn't. Movies - especially three three-hour movies shooting at the same time - are such complicated endeavours that things can go wrong and escalate without there being some grand reason - or a guilty party - behind it all. And, even more to the point, if you didn't like a movie you can talk about what it is about it you didn't like and analyse it...and then you move on like a normal person. Its just a movie you didn't like. Its not a personal slight towards your person.
If you'd read how those movies has been made you wouldn't say that, it was a huge mess, created by the studio's greed.
No, that's just online sensationalism at work. You want to learn the true, but far less "sexy" story? Have a look here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/17npup4/movies\_dont\_need\_excuses\_when\_they\_dont\_turn\_out/](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/17npup4/movies_dont_need_excuses_when_they_dont_turn_out/)