Hobbits are a fictional diminutive race who inhabit the lands of Middle-earth in J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction.

Hobbits first appeared in the novel The Hobbit, in which the main protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, is the titular hobbit. The novel The Lord of the Rings includes more Hobbits as major characters, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took and Meriadoc Brandybuck, as well as several other minor hobbit characters. Hobbits are also briefly mentioned in The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.

According to the author in the prologue to The Lord of the Rings, Hobbits are "relatives"^[1] of the race of Men. Elsewhere Tolkien describes Hobbits as a "variety"^[2] or separate "branch"^[3] of humans. Within the story, Hobbits and other races seem aware of the similarities (hence the colloquial terms "Big People" and "Little People" used in Bree). However, within the story, Hobbits considered themselves a separate people.^[4] At the time of the events in The Lord of the Rings, Hobbits lived in the Shire and in Bree in the north west of Middle-earth, though by the end, some had moved out to the Tower Hills and to Gondor and Rohan.

Development[link]

Tolkien believed he had invented the word "hobbit" when he began writing The Hobbit (it was revealed years after his death that the word predated Tolkien's usage, though with a different meaning).^[5] Tolkien's concept of hobbits, in turn, seems to have been inspired by Edward Wyke Smith's 1927 children's book The Marvellous Land of Snergs, and by Sinclair Lewis's 1922 novel Babbitt. The Snergs were, in Tolkien's words, "a race of people only slightly taller than the average table but broad in the shoulders and have the strength of ten men."^[6] Tolkien wrote to W. H. Auden that The Marvellous Land of Snergs "was probably an unconscious source-book for the Hobbits"^[5] and he told an interviewer that the word hobbit "might have been associated with Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt" (like hobbits, George Babbitt enjoys the comforts of his home). However, Tolkien claims that he started The Hobbit suddenly, without premeditation, in the midst of rating a set of student essay exams, writing on a blank piece of paper: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit".^[7] While The Hobbit introduced this comfortable race to the world, it is only in writing The Lord of the Rings that Tolkien developed details of their history and wider society.

He set out a fictional etymology for the name in an appendix to Lord of the Rings, to the effect that it was derived from holbytla (plural holbytlan), a speculative reconstruction of Old English, meaning “hole-builder” (in the books, Old English stands in for words in the language of the fictional Rohirrim).^[8]

Appearance[link]

In the prologue to The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien writes that Hobbits are between two and four feet (0.61–1.22 m) tall, the average height being three feet six inches (1.07 m). They dress in bright colours, favouring yellow and green. Nowadays (according to Tolkien's fiction), they are usually very shy creatures, but are nevertheless capable of great courage and amazing feats under the proper circumstances. They are adept with slings and throwing stones. For the most part, they cannot grow beards, but a few of the race of Stoor can. Their feet are covered with curly hair (usually brown, as was the hair on their heads) with leathery soles, so most Hobbits hardly ever wear shoes. Hobbits can sometimes live for up to 130 years, although their average life expectancy is 100 years. The time at which a young Hobbit "comes of age" is 33, thus a fifty-year-old Hobbit would only be entering middle age.

Hobbits are not quite as stocky as the similarly-sized dwarves, but still tend to be stout, with slightly pointed ears. Tolkien does not describe Hobbits' ears in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, but in a 1938 letter to his American publisher, he described Hobbits as having "ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'".^[9] Tolkien describes Hobbits thus:

I picture a fairly human figure, not a kind of 'fairy' rabbit as some of my British reviewers seem to fancy: fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg. A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'; hair short and curling (brown). The feet from the ankles down, covered with brown hairy fur. Clothing: green velvet breeches; red or yellow waistcoat; brown or green jacket; gold (or brass) buttons; a dark green hood and cloak (belonging to a dwarf).^[10]

Hobbits and derivative Halflings are often depicted with large feet for their size, perhaps to visually emphasize their unusualness. This is especially prominent in the influential illustrations by the Brothers Hildebrandt and the large prosthetic feet used in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Tolkien does not specifically mention foot size as a generic hobbit trait, but does make it the distinctive trait of the Proudfoot hobbit family.

Lifestyle[link]

In his writings, Tolkien depicted Hobbits as fond of an unadventurous, bucolic and simple life of farming, eating, and socializing, although capable of defending their homes courageously if the need arises. They would enjoy six meals a day, if they could get them.^[11] They were often described as enjoying simple food, though this seems to be of an Oxfordshire style, such as cake, bread, meat, potatoes, and tea. They claim to have invented the art of smoking pipe-weed, and according to The Hobbit and The Return of The King it can be found all over Middle-earth.

The Hobbits of the Shire developed the custom of giving away gifts on their birthdays, instead of receiving them, although this custom was not universally followed among other Hobbit cultures or communities.^[12] They use the term mathom for old and useless objects, which are invariably given as presents many times over, or are stored in a museum (mathom-house).

Some Hobbits live in "hobbit-holes" or Smials, traditional underground homes found in hillsides, downs, and banks. Like all Hobbit architecture, they are notable for their round doors and windows.

The Hobbits had a distinct calendar: every year started on a Saturday and ended on a Friday, with each of the twelve months consisting of thirty days. Some special days did not belong to any month — Yule 1 and 2 (New Year's Eve & New Years Day) and three Lithedays in mid-summer. Every fourth year there was an extra Litheday, most likely as an adaptation, similar to a leap year, to ensure that the calendar stayed synchronized with the seasons.^[13]

Fictional history[link]

Historically, the Hobbits are known to have originated in the Valley of Anduin, between Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains. According to The Lord of the Rings, they have lost the genealogical details of how they are related to the Big People. At this time, there were three "breeds" of Hobbits, with different physical characteristics and temperaments: Harfoots, Stoors and Fallohides. While situated in the valley of the Anduin River, the Hobbits lived close by the Éothéod, the ancestors of the Rohirrim, and this led to some contact between the two. As a result many old words and names in "Hobbitish" are derivatives of words in Rohirric.

The Harfoots, the most numerous, were almost identical to the Hobbits as they are described in The Hobbit. They lived on the lowest slopes of the Misty Mountains and lived in holes, or Smials, dug into the hillsides.

The Stoors, the second most numerous, were shorter and stockier and had an affinity for water, boats and swimming. They lived on the marshy Gladden Fields where the Gladden River met the Anduin (there is a similarity here to the hobbits of Buckland and the Marish in the Shire. It is possible that those hobbits were the descendants of Stoors). It was from these Hobbits that Déagol and Sméagol/Gollum were descended.

The Fallohides, the least numerous, were an adventurous people that preferred to live in the woods under the Misty Mountains and were said to be taller and fairer (all of these traits were much rarer in later days, and it has been implied that wealthy, eccentric families that tended to lead other hobbits politically, like the Tooks and Brandybucks, were of Fallohide descent). Three of the four principal hobbit characters in The Lord of the Rings (Frodo, Pippin and Merry) certainly had Fallohide blood through their common ancestor, the Old Took.

About the year T.A. 1050, they undertook the arduous task of crossing the Misty Mountains. Reasons for this trek are unknown, but they possibly had to do with Sauron's growing power in nearby Greenwood, which later became known as Mirkwood as a result of the shadow that fell upon it during Sauron's search of the forest for the One Ring. The Hobbits took different routes in their journey westward, but as they began to settle together in Bree-land, Dunland, and the Angle formed by the rivers Mitheithel and Bruinen, the divisions between the Hobbit-kinds began to blur.

In the year 1601 of the Third Age (year 1 in the Shire Reckoning), two Fallohide brothers named Marcho and Blanco gained permission from the King of Arnor at Fornost to cross the River Brandywine and settle on the other side. Many Hobbits followed them, and most of the territory they had settled in the Third Age was abandoned. Only Bree and a few surrounding villages lasted to the end of the Third Age. The new land that they founded on the west bank of the Brandywine was called the Shire.

Originally the Hobbits of the Shire swore nominal allegiance to the last Kings of Arnor, being required only to acknowledge their lordship, speed their messengers, and keep the bridges and roads in repair. During the final fight against Angmar at the Battle of Fornost, the Hobbits maintain that they sent a company of archers to help but this is nowhere else recorded. After the battle, the kingdom of Arnor was destroyed, and in absence of the king, the Hobbits elected a Thain of the Shire from among their own chieftains.

The first Thain of the Shire was Bucca of the Marish, who founded the Oldbuck family. However, the Oldbuck family later crossed the Brandywine River to create the separate land of Buckland and the family name changed to the familiar "Brandybuck". Their patriarch then became Master of Buckland. With the departure of the Oldbucks/Brandybucks, a new family was selected to have its chieftains be Thain: the Took family (Pippin Took was son of the Thain and would later become Thain himself). The Thain was in charge of Shire Moot and Muster and the Hobbitry-in-Arms, but as the Hobbits of the Shire led entirely peaceful, uneventful lives the office of Thain was seen as something more of a formality.

The Hobbits' numbers dwindled, and their stature became progressively smaller after the Fourth Age. However, they are sometimes spoken of in the present tense, and the prologue "Concerning Hobbits" in The Lord of the Rings states that they have survived into Tolkien's day.^[14]

Divisions[link]

• Harfoots: The Harfoots were the most numerous group of Hobbits and also the first to enter Eriador. They were the smallest in stature of all hobbits. They had closer relations with Dwarves than did other Hobbits. Tolkien coined the term as analogous to "hairfoot".^[15]
• Fallohides: The Fallohides were the least numerous group and the second group to enter Eriador. They were generally fair-haired and tall (for Hobbits). They were often found leading other clans of Hobbits as they were more adventurous than the other races. They preferred the forests and had links with the Elves. Tolkien created the name from the archaic meanings of English words "fallow" and "hide", meaning "pale skin".^[15]
• Stoors: The Stoors were the second most numerous group of Hobbits and the last to enter Eriador. They were broader than other Hobbits. They mostly dwelt beside rivers and were the only Hobbits to use boats and swim. Males were able to grow beards. Tolkien says they were "less shy of Men". Sméagol and Déagol were apparently either Hobbits of Stoorish descent or else close relatives of the breed. Tolkien used an archaic English word stor or stoor "strong".^[15]

Moral significance[link]

Kocher notes that Tolkien's literary techniques require us to increasingly view Hobbits as like us, especially when placed under moral pressure to survive a war that threatens to devastate their land.^[16] Frodo becomes in some ways the symbolic representation of the conscience of Hobbits, a point made explicitly in the story "Leaf by Niggle" which Tolkien wrote at the same time as the first nine chapters of The Lord of the Rings.^[17] Niggle is a painter struggling against the summons of death to complete his one great canvas, a picture of a tree with a background of forest and distant mountains. He dies with the work incomplete, undone by his imperfectly generous heart: "it made him uncomfortable more often than it made him do anything". After discipline in Purgatory, however, Niggle finds himself in the very landscape depicted by his painting which he is now able to finish with the assistance of a neighbour who obstructed him during life. The picture complete, Niggle is free to journey to the distant mountains which represent the highest stage of his spiritual development.^[18] Thus, upon recovery from the wound inflicted by Angmar on Weathertop, Gandalf speculates that the Hobbit Frodo "may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can".^[19] Similarly, as Frodo nears Mount Doom he casts aside weapons and refuses to fight others with physical force: "For him struggles for the right must hereafter be waged only on the moral plane."^[19]

In popular culture[link]

Science[link]

The skeletal remains of several diminutive paleolithic hominids were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004. These tiny people, named Homo floresiensis after the island on which the remains were found,^[20] were informally dubbed "hobbits" by their discoverers in a series of articles published in the scientific journal Nature.^[21] The excavated skeletons reveal a hominid that (like a hobbit) grew no larger than a three-year-old modern child and had proportionately larger feet than modern humans.^[22] The original skeleton, a female, stood at just 1 metre (3.3 feet) tall, weighed about 25 kilograms (55 pounds), and was around 30 years old at the time of her death. Further analysis of the remains using a regression equation indicated that Homo floresiensis was approximately 106 cm tall (3 feet, 6 inches)—far smaller than the modern pygmies, whose adults grow to no more than 150 cm (4 feet, 11 inches).^[23] Thus far, nine skeletons of Homo floresiensis dating from approximately 38,000 to 13,000 years ago have been excavated, suggesting that these "hobbits" would have shared the island with dwarf elephants, giant rats, and Komodo dragons.^[24]

Whether the "hobbit" skeletons represent a species distinct from modern humans has been a subject of scientific debate. In addition to their small size and big feet, the skull and arm bones of Homo floresiensis differ from those of modern humans.^[25][26] Critics of the claim for species status argue that these differences were caused by pathologies of anatomy and physiology. In contrast, a 2009 article in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society noted that “attempts to dismiss the hobbits as pathological people have failed repeatedly because the medical diagnoses of dwarfing syndromes and microcephaly bear no resemblance to the unique anatomy of Homo floresiensis.”^[23][27]

Games[link]

Along with dwarves and elves, hobbits have become a common feature of many fantasy games, both pen-and-paper role-playing games and computer games. Examples of games which feature hobbits include the Wizardry series, Quiz Magic Academy series, Lufia: The Ruins of Lore, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, the Middle-earth Role Playing (MERP) System (by Iron Crown Enterprises), and Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game (by Decipher Games). However the word "Hobbit" is a trademark owned by the Tolkien estate. For this reason Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy games most often refer to hobbit-like creatures by another name, most commonly as halflings, a term sometimes used to refer to hobbits in The Lord of the Rings. Alternatives include hin in the Mystara universe, hurthlings in Ancient Domains of Mystery, and Bobbits in the Ultima series. In Magic the Gathering, Kithkin serve the same role as Hobbits, and share many of the same characteristics, such as size, groupings and alignment, but are more militarily capable. They also appear as an enemy in Overlord.

Music[link]

"Stealing like a Hobbit" is the name of a parody song, by Luke Sienkowski, that was most requested in 2003 on the Dr. Demento Show. The song "Secret Kingdom" on Newsboys' Go includes the line, "send us hobbits out of the Shire". Hobbits are also featured in Leonard Nimoy's "Ballad of Bilbo Baggins". "The Bard's Song - The Hobbit" is a song by the Power metal band Blind Guardian, featured in their 1992 album Somewhere Far Beyond which is based on J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.

See also[link]

Middle-earth portal

• Calendar of Imladris
• Halfling
• Homo floresiensis
• List of Hobbits
• Pygmy
• Hob (folklore)

Notes and references[link]

Notes and citations

General references

• Carpenter, Humphrey (1977). J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. George Allen & Unwin. 
• Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (1981), The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ISBN 0-395-31555-7 
• Kocher, Paul (1972). Master of Middle Earth. The Achievement of JRR Tolkien. London: Thames and Hudson. .
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954), The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings, Boston: Houghton Mifflin (published 1987), ISBN 0-395-08254-4 

External links[link]

• Hobbits at the Tolkien Gateway
• Were Hobbits a sub-group of Humans? from the Tolkien Meta-FAQ, compiled by Steuard Jensen

Sir Peter Jackson
Jackson at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con International
Born	(1961-10-31) 31 October 1961 (age 50) Pukerua Bay, New Zealand
Occupation	Film director, film producer, screenwriter
Years active	1976–present
Spouse	Fran Walsh (1987–present)

Sir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM^[1] (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, who is well known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001 to 2003), adapted from the novel by J. R. R. Tolkien.

He won international attention early in his career with his "splatstick" horror comedies beginning with Bad Taste (1987) before coming to mainstream prominence with Heavenly Creatures (1994), for which he shared an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay nomination with his wife, Fran Walsh. Jackson has been awarded three Academy Awards in his career, including the award for Best Director in 2003; he also won the BAFTA, Golden Globe and Saturn Award for Best Direction the same year.

His films also include Meet the Feebles (1989), Braindead (1992), Forgotten Silver (1995), The Frighteners (1996), King Kong (2005),^[2] The Lovely Bones (2009), and the upcoming The Lord of the Rings prequels The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) and The Hobbit: There and Back Again (2013). He is also the producer of District 9 (2009) and The Adventures of Tintin (2011).

Jackson was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2002. He was later knighted (as a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit) by then Governor-General Anand Satyanand at a ceremony in Wellington in April, 2010.

Early life[link]

Jackson, an only child, was born on 31 October 1961. He grew up in Pukerua Bay, a coastal town near Wellington. His parents - Joan (born Ruck^[3][4]), a factory worker and housewife, and William (Bill) Jackson, a wages clerk - were both immigrants from England.^[5][6] His father was a veteran of the Siege of Malta in World War II. He is distantly related to Richard Hill^[7] a member of the English 2003 Rugby World Cup winner.

As a child, Jackson was a keen film fan, growing up on Ray Harryhausen films as well as finding inspiration in the television series Thunderbirds and Monty Python's Flying Circus. After a family friend gave the Jacksons a Super 8 cine-camera with Peter in mind, he began making short films with his friends. Jackson has long cited King Kong as his favourite film and around the age of nine he attempted to remake it using his own stop-motion models.^[8] Also as a child Jackson made a WWII epic^{[citation needed]} and a James Bond spoof named Coldfinger.^[9] Most notably though was a 10 minute short called 'The Valley' which won him a special prize because of the shots he used.

In school Jackson expressed no interest (or skill) in sports. His classmates also remember him wearing a Duffel coat with " an obsession verging on religious."

Jackson had no formal training in film-making, but learned about editing, special effects and make-up largely through his own trial and error. As a young adult Jackson discovered the work of author J. R. R. Tolkien after watching The Lord of the Rings (1978), an animated film by Ralph Bakshi that was a part-adaptation of Tolkien's fantasy trilogy.^[10]

When he was 16 years old, Jackson left school and began working full time as a photo-engraver for the local newspaper. For the 7 years he worked there, Jackson lived at home with his parents so he could save as much money as possible to spend on filming equipment. After two years of work Jackson bought a 16 mm camera, and began shooting a short film that later became Bad Taste.^[11]

Career[link]

The splatter period[link]

Over four years (from 1983 to 1987) Jackson's first feature, Bad Taste, grew in haphazard fashion from a short film into a 90-minute splatter comedy, with many of Jackson's friends acting and working on it for free. Shooting was normally done in the weekends since Jackson was now working full-time. Bad Taste is about aliens that come to earth with the intention of turning humans into food. Jackson had two acting roles including a famous scene in which he fights himself on top of a cliff.

The film was finally completed thanks to a late injection of finance from the New Zealand Film Commission, after Jim Booth, the body's executive director, became convinced of Jackson's talent (Booth later left the Commission to become Jackson's producer). In May 1987, Bad Taste was unveiled at the Cannes Film Festival, where rights to the film quickly sold to twelve countries.

Around this time Peter Jackson began working on writing a number of film scripts, in varied collaborative groupings with playwright Stephen Sinclair, writer Fran Walsh and writer/actor Danny Mulheron. Walsh would later become his wife. Some of the scripts from this period, including a sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street, have never been made into movies; the proposed zombie film Braindead underwent extensive rewrites.

Jackson's next film to see release was Meet the Feebles (1989), co-written by the four writers mentioned above. An ensemble musical comedy starring Muppet-style puppets, Meet the Feebles originally began as a short film intended for television, but was rapidly expanded into a full-length film after unexpected enthusiasm from Japanese investors, and the collapse of Braindead, six weeks before filming. Begun on a very low budget, Meet the Feebles went weeks over schedule. Jackson stated of his second feature length film, "It's got a quality of humour that alienates a lot of people.. It's very black, very satirical, very savage."^[12] Feebles marked Jackson's first collaboration with special effects team Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger, who would later work on all Jackson's movies.

Jackson's next release was the horror comedy Braindead (1992) (released in North America as Dead Alive), now seen as a landmark in splatter movies. Originally planned as a Spanish co-production, the film reversed the usual zombie plot. Rather than keeping the zombies out of his place of refuge, the hero attempts to keep them inside, while maintaining a façade of normality. The film features extensive special effects including miniature trams, stop motion and a plethora of gory make-up effects.

[edit] Heavenly Creatures and Forgotten Silver

Released in 1994 after Jackson won a race to bring the story to the screen, Heavenly Creatures marked a major change for Jackson in terms of both style and tone. The film is based on real-life events: namely the Parker–Hulme murder in which two teenage girls in 1950s Christchurch became close friends, some say lovers, and later murdered the mother of one of the girls. Jackson's partner Fran Walsh helped persuade him that the events had the makings of a movie; Jackson has been quoted saying that the film "only got made" because of her enthusiasm for the subject matter.^[13] Many New Zealanders were apprehensive about how Jackson would treat the material, an apprehension that would later turn in many cases to relief. The film's fame coincided with the New Zealand media tracking down the real-life Juliet Hulme, who now wrote books under the name Anne Perry. Jackson would cast the actors Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet in the roles of Parker and Hulme. Heavenly Creatures received considerable critical acclaim, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay and making top ten of the year lists in Time, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The New Zealand Herald.

The success of Heavenly Creatures won Jackson attention from US company Miramax, who promoted the film vigorously in America and signed the director to a first-look deal.

The following year, in collaboration with Wellington film-maker Costa Botes, Jackson co-directed the mockumentary Forgotten Silver (1995). This ambitious made-for-television piece told the story of New Zealand film pioneer Colin McKenzie, who had supposedly invented colour film and 'talkies', and attempted an epic film of Salome before being forgotten by the world. Though the programme played in a slot normally reserved for drama, no other warning was given that it was fictionalised. Many were outraged at discovering Colin McKenzie had never existed. Some have argued that the number of people who believed the increasingly improbable story provides testimony to Jackson and Botes' skill at playing on New Zealand's national myth of a nation of innovators and forgotten trail-blazers.^[14]

In the meantime, Jackson and Walsh had two children, Billy (1995) and Katie (1996).

Hollywood, Weta, and the Film Commission[link]

A drawing of Peter Jackson, surrounded by characters and objects from his films

The success of Heavenly Creatures helped pave the way for Jackson's first big budget Hollywood film, The Frighteners starring Michael J. Fox, in 1996. Thanks partly to support from American producer Robert Zemeckis, Jackson was given permission to make this comedy/horror film entirely in New Zealand despite being set in a North American town. This period was a key one of change for both Jackson and Weta Workshop, the special effects company — born from the one man contributions of George Port to Heavenly Creatures — with which Jackson is often associated. Weta, initiated by Jackson and key collaborators, grew rapidly during this period to incorporate both digital and physical effects, make-up and costumes, the first two areas normally commanded by Jackson collaborator Richard Taylor.

The Frighteners was regarded as a commercial failure. Some critics^[who?] expressed disappointment that it displayed little of the anarchistic humor of Jackson's early movies and that the script felt underdeveloped.^{[citation needed]} In February 1997, Jackson launched legal proceedings against the New Zealand Listener magazine for defamation, over a review of The Frighteners which claimed that the film was "built from the rubble of other people's movies".^[15] In the end, the case was not pursued further. Around this time Jackson's remake of King Kong was shelved by Universal Studios, partly because of Mighty Joe Young and Godzilla (1998 film), both giant monster movies, that had already gone into production. Universal feared it would be thrown aside by the two higher budget movies.

This period of transition seems not to have been entirely a happy one; it also marked one of the high points of tension between Jackson and the New Zealand Film Commission since Meet the Feebles had gone over-budget earlier in his career. Jackson has claimed the Commission considered firing him from Feebles, though the NZFC went on to help fund his next three films. In 1997, the director submitted a lengthy criticism of the Commission for a magazine supplement meant to celebrate the body's 20th anniversary, criticising what he called inconsistent decision-making by inexperienced board members. The magazine felt that the material was too long and potentially defamatory to publish in that form; a shortened version of the material went on to appear in Metro magazine.^[16] In the Metro article Jackson criticized the Commission over funding decisions concerning a film he was hoping to executive produce, but refused to drop a client-confidentiality clause that allowed them to publicly reply to his criticisms.

[edit] The Lord of the Rings

Jackson in 2003, at the premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in Wellington

Peter Jackson won the rights to film J. R. R. Tolkien's epic in 1997 after meeting with producer Saul Zaentz. Originally working with Miramax towards a two-film production, Jackson was later pressured to render the story as a single film, and finally overcame a tight deadline by making a last minute deal with New Line, who were keen on a trilogy.

Principal photography stretched from 11 October 1999 to 22 December 2000 with extensive location filming across New Zealand. With the benefit of extended post-production and extra periods of shooting before each film's release, the series met huge success and sent Jackson's popularity soaring. The Return of the King itself met with huge critical acclaim, winning eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. The film was the first of the fantasy film genre to win the award for Best Picture and was the second sequel to win Best Picture (the first being The Godfather Part II).

Jackson's mother, Joan, died three days before the release of the first movie in the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring. There was a special showing of the film after her funeral.^[17]

Following The Return of the King, Jackson lost a large amount of weight –over 50 pounds (23 kg) to the point of being unrecognisable to some fans. In The Daily Telegraph, he attributed his weight loss to his diet. He said, "I just got tired of being overweight and unfit, so I changed my diet from hamburgers to yogurt and muesli and it seems to work."^[18]

[edit] King Kong

Universal Studios signed Peter Jackson for a second time to remake the 1933 classic King Kong — the film that inspired him to become a film director as a child.^[19] He was reportedly paid a fee of US$20 million upfront, the highest salary ever paid to date to a film director in advance of production, against a 20 percent take of the box-office rentals (the portion of the price of the ticket that goes to the film distributor, in this case Universal). The film was released on 14 December 2005, and grossed around US$550 million worldwide.^[20]

[edit] The Lovely Bones

Jackson completed an adaptation of Alice Sebold's bestseller, The Lovely Bones, which was released in the United States on 11 December 2009.^[21] Jackson has said the film was a welcome relief from his larger-scale epics. The storyline's combination of fantasy aspects and themes of murder bears some similarities to Heavenly Creatures.

The film was an anticipated Best Picture Oscar contender, but ended up receiving poor reviews and middling box office returns. It currently holds 32% rotten on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Tintin franchise[link]

Jackson is the main producer on The Adventures of Tintin, directed by Steven Spielberg. He is officially labeled as producer but helped Spielberg, before he began working on The Hobbit, directing the film. He also supervised Weta Digital on the post production of the film. Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis were cast due to their collaboration with Peter Jackson on King Kong and The Lord of the Rings. Spielberg also chose to work with Peter Jackson due to the impressive digital work on the Lord of the Rings films, and knew Peter Jackson's company Weta Workshop would make his vision a reality.

In December 2011, Spielberg confirmed a sequel to his 3D movie will be made and are said to be based on The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun.^[22] He explained the Thompson detectives will "have a much bigger role". The sequel will be produced by Spielberg and directed by Jackson.^[22] Kathleen Kennedy said the script might be done by February or March 2012 and motion-captured in summer 2012, so that the movie will be on track to be released on either Christmas 2014 or summer 2015.^[23] In February 2012, Spielberg revealed to Total Film that they had completed a story outline for the sequel.

Current and future projects[link]

Jackson had talked of producing films for others as early as 1995, but a number of factors slowed developments in this regard, including the failure of Jack Brown Genius (1995). After he became a force in Hollywood, he was set to produce a $128 million movie version of the science fiction video game series Halo, but the project went on hold when financial backers withdrew their support.^[24][25] The failure of Halo however led to what became District 9, which ended up being a box office hit and garnered a Best Picture nomination.

Jackson is set to produce a remake of The Dam Busters, to be directed by longtime Weta designer Christian Rivers and for which Stephen Fry has written a screenplay.^[26][27]

Jackson has also won the rights to a film adaptation of the fantasy novel series Temeraire, a novel about dragons being used in combat in the Napoleonic Wars and a dragon named Temeraire and his captain, Will Laurence, written by Naomi Novik. It remains to be seen if he will direct it.^[28]

Jackson produced District 9, a science fiction project which Neill Blomkamp directed. The script was written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell.^[29]

In recent years, Jackson has also directed a short film entitled Crossing the Line to test a new model of digital cinema camera, the RED ONE. The film takes place during World War I, and was shot in two days. "Crossing the Line" was shown at NAB 2007 (the USA National Association of Broadcasters). Clips of the film can be found at Reduser.net.^[30]

Jackson and his newly formed studio Wingnut Interactive are working on an unrevealed project being developed by Microsoft Game Studios in collaboration with Bungie Studios. The project has been officially titled Halo: Chronicles but beyond speculation little else is known about its nature. He was to be the executive producer on a Halo film, developed and released by Universal Studios and 20th Century Fox but in October 2006 the film was postponed indefinitely. The film was never officially cancelled and in late June 2008 Peter Jackson commented that, "With upcoming developments (Halo: Chronicles), I wouldn't know when to expect a movie, and I'm the producer."

Jackson spent $5 million to purchase 20 hectares of land in Wairarapa, a property containing a mansion, private lake, tunnel and the interior of Bag End from The Lord of the Rings. In 2009, he purchased a Gulfstream G550 jet; his total net worth is estimated by National Business Review at NZ$450 million.^[31] Jackson owns an aircraft restoration and manufacturing company, The Vintage Aviator, which is dedicated to World War I and World War II fighter planes among other planes from the 1920s and 1930s. He is chairman of the Omaka Aviation Heritage Trust, which hosts a biennial air show.^[32] In late December 2009 announced his interest on the movie adaption of the novel Mortal Engines.^[33] In April 2010 it was confirmed that he would be both director and producer of the project and as of May 2010 it is rumoured that WETA has already begun preliminary work on the movie.

[edit] The Hobbit

Jackson's involvement in the making of a film version of The Hobbit, has a long and chequered history. In November 2006, a letter from Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh stated that due to an ongoing legal dispute between Wingnut Films (Jackson's production company) and New Line Cinema, Jackson would not be directing the film.^[34] New Line Cinema's head Robert Shaye commented that Jackson "...will never make any movie with New Line Cinema again while I'm still working at the company...".^[35] This prompted an online call for a boycott of New Line Cinema,^[36] and by August 2007 Shaye was trying to repair his working relationship.^[37] On 18 December 2007, it was announced that Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema had reached agreement to make two prequels, both based on The Hobbit, and to be released in 2012 and 2013 with Jackson as a writer and executive producer and Guillermo del Toro directing.^[38][39]

However, in early 2010, del Toro dropped out of directing the film because of production delays^[40] and a month later Jackson was back in negotiations to direct The Hobbit;^[41] and on October 15 he was finalised as the director^[42][43]—with New Zealand confirmed as the location a couple of weeks later.^[44] The film started production on March 20, 2011.

Games[link]

Jackson was set to make games with Microsoft Game Studios, a partnership announced on 27 September 2006, at X06.^[45] Specifically, Jackson and Microsoft were teaming together to form a new studio called Wingnut Interactive.^[46] In collaboration with Bungie Studios, Jackson was to co-write, co-design and co-produce a new game taking place in the Halo universe - tentatively called Halo: Chronicles. However on 27 July 2009, in an interview about his new movie District 9, he said that Halo: Chronicles had been cancelled, while Microsoft confirmed that the game is "on hold". Jackson's game studio Wingnut Interactive is now at work on original intellectual property.^[47]

Charitable activities[link]

Jackson has given NZ$500,000 to stem cell research.^[48]

He purchased a church in the Wellington suburb of Seatoun for about $10 million, saving it from demolition.^[49]

He also contributes his expertise to 48HOURS, a New Zealand film-making competition, through annually selecting 3 "Wildcards" for the National Final.

Jackson, a World War I aviation enthusiast, is chair of the 14-18 Aviation Heritage Trust.^[50] He donated his services and provided replica aircraft to create a 10 minute multimedia display called Over the Front for the Australian War Memorial in 2008.^[51]

He contributed to the defense fund for the West Memphis Three.^[52]

In 2011, Jackson and Walsh purchased 1 Kent Terrace, the home of BATS Theatre in Wellington, effectively securing the theatre's future.^[53]

Style[link]

Jackson is known for his attention to detail, a habit of shooting scenes from many angles, a macabre sense of humour, and a general playfulness - the latter to the point where The Lord of the Rings conceptual designer Alan Lee jokingly remarked "the film is almost incidental really".^[54]

Jackson was a noted perfectionist on the Lord of the Rings shoot, where he demanded numerous takes of scenes, requesting additional takes by repeatedly saying, "one more for luck".^[55] Jackson is also renowned within the New Zealand film industry for his insistence on "coverage" — shooting a scene from as many angles as possible, giving him more options during editing.^{[citation needed]} Jackson has been known to spend days shooting a single scene. This is evident in his work where even scenes featuring simple conversations often feature a wide array of multiple camera angles and shot-sizes as well as zooming closeups on characters' faces. One of his most common visual trademarks is shooting close-ups of actors with wide-angle lenses.

Unlike some other film directors, Jackson has remained in his native country to make films. This has been the genesis of several production and support companies. Most of Jackson's assets are found on the Miramar Peninsula in his home town of Wellington where much of his filming occurs; and he was instrumental in having the world premiere of The Return of the King in the city's iconic Embassy Theatre which he helped restore.

He was an early user of computer enhancement technology and provided digital special effects to a number of Hollywood films by use of telecommunications and satellite links to transmit raw images and the final results across the Pacific Ocean.^{[citation needed]}

During filming of The Lord of the Rings, Jackson was famous for wearing shorts and going barefoot under most circumstances, especially during film shoots.^[56]

Cameo roles[link]

Jackson usually makes cameo appearances in his own films:

• In The Lovely Bones, he appears as a customer in a camera store playing with a camera.
• Jackson appears as a biplane gunner attacking Kong in New York, reprising the cameo which original King Kong filmmaker Merian C. Cooper made in his 1933 film.
• The Lord of the Rings film trilogy includes multiple cameos. In The Fellowship of the Ring, Jackson plays a drunken, carrot-chomping citizen of Bree. In The Two Towers, he plays a spear-throwing defender of Helm's Deep. In his significant cameo in The Return of the King he is seen as the boatswain of a murderous corsair ship. This character is seen very briefly in the theatrical version. In the extended version he is onscreen for a longer period of time and is accidentally killed by Legolas's "warning shot". A detailed action figure of Jackson was made of this character in the same line as the rest of the Lord of the Rings toys.
• Jackson's second cameo in Return of the King is during the scene of Shelob's Lair, where Sam's arm (Jackson's) is seen entering the shot as Shelob is wrapping Frodo in webbing. This was due to Sean Astin's temporary absence, and Peter wanted to progress the production of the scene as much as possible, even without the actor.^[57]
• In The Frighteners, Jackson is a biker bumped into by Frank Bannister.
• In Heavenly Creatures, he is the bum who gets kissed by Juliet Hulme.
• In Braindead, he is the mortician's assistant.
• In the puppet movie Meet the Feebles, Jackson appears as an audience member disguised as one of the aliens from Bad Taste.^{[citation needed]}

He has also made cameos in several films not directed by him. In the opening sequence of Hot Fuzz (2007), he played a demented man dressed as Father Christmas, who stabs Nicholas Angel (played by Simon Pegg) in the hand.^[58] Pegg, in the commentary, joked that when Jackson saw that his cameo was extremely short, he walked out of the theater and walked in circles in the hallway for the rest of the duration of the film.

Jackson's eldest son, Billy (born 1995), has made cameo appearances in every one of his father's films since his birth, namely The Frighteners (1996), The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and King Kong. His daughter, Katie (born 1996), appears in all the above films except The Frighteners.

Jackson had a cameo on the HBO show Entourage in 5 August 2007 episode, "Gary's Desk", in which he offers a business proposal to Eric Murphy, manager to the lead character, Vincent Chase.

Filmography[link]

Awards and nominations[link]