HitFix, or the HitFix.com is an entertainment news website that launched in December 2008 specializing in breaking entertainment news, insider information and providing reviews and critiques of film, music and television.^[1] In mid 2010 HitFix crossed the 1,000,000 unique users per month barrier.^[2]

Founders[link]

HitFix was founded by ex-Reed Business Information Development executive, Jen Sargent, and former L.A. Times and MSN.com film editor, Gregory Ellwood. The goal of Sargent and Ellwood was to create a site that fit into the gap between trade publications and gossip- or celebrity scandal-driven sites such as TMZ and to target an audience slightly skewed towards males – a unique approach in a female-driven industry.^[3]

Angel Investment[link]

HitFix has twice benefited from investment from the Tech Coast Angels – the largest angel investment group in the United States. The first such investment came in February 2009 in the amount of $850,000. In June 2010 the Angels added to their commitment investing an additional $1,600,000.^[1]

Contributors[link]

Alan Sepinwall[link]

After 14 years at the New Jersey Star-Ledger, Sepinwall—also known for his blog, "What's Alan Watching"—moved to HitFix fulltime in April 2010. Last spring, NBC executives went so far as to credit Sepinwall by name for his role in earning a renewal for Chuck.^[4] Slate Magazine credited Sepinwall with having "changed the nature of television criticism".^[5]

Gregory Ellwood[link]

In addition to being one of its co-founders, Ellwood also reports on Movies and Awards for HitFix.^[3]

Drew McWeeny[link]

Formerly known as “Moriarty,” Mcweeny previously wrote for Ain't It Cool News. In addition to being a screenwriter and movie critic, McWeeny now covers the movie industry for HitFix. McWeeny announced his move to HitFix in 2008 in a review of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’’.^[6]

Melinda Newman[link]

Newman is the former West Coast Bureau chief of Billboard Magazine and covers music for HitFix.^[7]

Katie Hasty[link]

Hasty is a former associate editor for billboard.com and columnist for Billboard Magazine. In addition to covering music for the HitFix she also is the managing editor.^[8]

Daniel Fienberg[link]

Fienberg is known for his blog “The Fien Print” and covers TV for HitFix.^[1]

External links[link]

• HitFix.com

References[link]

Taylor Kitsch
Kitsch at the John Carter premiere in Los Angeles, California, February 2012
Born	(1981-04-08) April 8, 1981 (age 31) Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
Occupation	Actor, Model
Years active	2002–present

Taylor Kitsch (born April 8, 1981) is a Canadian actor and model. He is best known for his role as Tim Riggins in the NBC television series Friday Night Lights and for his role as Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He also starred in big-budgeted films John Carter and Battleship.

Early life and modeling career[link]

Kitsch was born in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. His mother worked for the BC liquor board and his father in construction.^[1][2] He has two older brothers and two younger half sisters, and was raised by his single mother.^[3] He played junior ice hockey for the Langley Hornets in the British Columbia Hockey League before a knee injury ended his career.^[4]

Kitsch moved to New York in 2002 after receiving an opportunity to pursue modeling with IMG and studied acting there as well. While in New York, he became a nutritionist and a personal trainer.^[5] For a time in New York he was homeless and took to sleeping on subway trains in the middle of the night.^[6]

In 2004, he relocated to Los Angeles where he modeled for Diesel and Abercrombie & Fitch.^[6][7] He also appears in the limited edition coffee table book About Face by celebrity photographer John Russo.^[8][9]

Acting career[link]

Kitsch starred as football player Tim Riggins in the NBC series Friday Night Lights, which was created by Peter Berg.

He played Pogue Parry in The Covenant alongside Steven Strait, Sebastian Stan, Laura Ramsey, Toby Hemingway, Jessica Lucas and Chace Crawford.

In February 2008, he signed on to play Gambit in the X-Men franchise spinoff X-Men Origins: Wolverine, released in May 2009. Of the fan-favorite character of Gambit, Kitsch states, "I knew of him, but I didn't know the following he had. I'm sure I'm still going to be exposed to that. I love the character, I love the powers, and I love what they did with him. I didn't know that much, but in my experience, it was a blessing to go in and create my take on him. I'm excited for it, to say the least."^[10]

In 2009, Kitsch signed up for Steven Silver's The Bang Bang Club, a historical drama set in South Africa which documents the final bloody days of the apartheid.^[11] He had to lose 35 pounds in two months to play the role of photojournalist Kevin Carter, alongside Ryan Phillipe and Malin Åkerman.^[12]

In November 2010, The Hollywood Reporter named Kitsch as one of the young male actors who are "pushing – or being pushed" into taking over Hollywood as the new "A-List".^[13][14]

Kitsch's first lead role in a film was in Disney's John Carter, based on the novel A Princess of Mars, which was released in March 2012. He played the title role of John Carter, a Confederate soldier who gets transported to Mars. The film made back less than a third of its budget domestically, and worldwide grosses barely recouped its production and marketing costs.^[15] Despite this, Kitsch said, "I'm very proud of John Carter. Box office doesn't validate me as a person, or as an actor."^[16]

In May 2012, he starred in Peter Berg's Battleship, an adaptation of Hasbro's eponymous guessing game, as Naval commander Alex Hopper.^[17] It, too, failed at the domestic box office, boasting the worst opening in history for a fim that cost more than $200 million. Again, international revenues are expected to help mitigate its performance.^[18] The film marked his reunion with Berg and former co-star Jesse Plemons, who also starred in Friday Night Lights.^[19] In June 2012, he will play in Oliver Stone's Savages opposite Blake Lively, Salma Hayek and Uma Thurman.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Taylor Kitsch

• Taylor Kitsch at the Internet Movie Database

Dominic West
Dominic West, September 2008
Born	(1969-10-15) 15 October 1969 (age 42) Sheffield, England
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1991–present
Spouse	Catherine Fitzgerald (2010–present)

Dominic Gerard Fe West (born 15 October 1969) is an English actor best known for his role as Detective Jimmy McNulty in the HBO drama series The Wire.

Career[link]

Film and TV[link]

West made his debut in 1991 in a short called 3 Joes.^{[citation needed]} His other screen appearances include True Blue, Chicago and Mona Lisa Smile. His most notable television role has been Baltimore police detective Jimmy McNulty on the HBO television police drama The Wire. West was praised for the accuracy of his character's accent.^[1][2]

During his stint on The Wire, West directed the season 5 episode, "Took".

In film, he portrayed the heavy metal guitarist Kirk Cuddy in the 2001 film Rock Star. In 2006 West made a guest appearance as an actor in a sketch in The Catherine Tate Show, alongside "Frankie Howerd impressionist". In 2007, he played the Spartan politician Theron in 300. West also starred in the 1999 film version of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream as Lysander.

West appeared in the role of Oliver Cromwell in the Channel 4 series The Devil's Whore. West played the villain, Jigsaw, in the 2008 film Punisher: War Zone. He also features in "Dr. West", the opening track on Eminem's 2009 album Relapse, as a doctor discharging Eminem from a rehab facility. West played the part over the phone in January 2009 while Eminem was recording it in a Miami studio.^[3]

In December 2009, he starred as Hank in a radio adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's expressionist play The Hairy Ape for BBC Radio 3,^[4] was a guest presenter on the BBC show Have I Got News for You, and ended the year alongside Joan Rivers and Sarah Jessica Parker with an appearance on Graham Norton's New Year's Eve Show.^[5] West portrayed General Virilus in Neil Marshall's adventure thriller Centurion^[6] and stars in the UK Ghost film The Awakening.^[7]

In 2011, West appeared as a news presenter on the BBC-TV period drama series The Hour. He also filmed Appropriate Adult, a series about serial killer Fred West which focuses on the events between the Wests' arrests in 1994, and Fred's suicide in Birmingham's Winson Green Prison on New Year's Day, 1995. His physical resemblance to West was noted during filming and Fred West's daughter Mae West thought he captured the "evil essence of him - his character, his mannerisms, even his gait." Janet Leach found it difficult to approach Dominic in character on set because he was so convincing that it took Leach back 17 years.^[8] The series aired on ITV on 4 and 11 September as a two part 90 minute special. Dominic West also said "I have this recurring dream where I'm perched on a wall and Fred West is trying to grab me and pull me down,".

Theatre[link]

As a theatre actor, West has appeared as Konstantin in the Peter Hall-directed The Seagull (1996) at the Old Vic.^{[citation needed]} In 2005, he returned to the stage to play Orlando in David Lan's As You Like It at the Wyndham's Theatre in London.^{[citation needed]} He played Edward in Harley Granville Barker's The Voysey Inheritance directed by Peter Gill at the Royal National Theatre in 2006.^[9] In late 2006 and early 2007, he played the lead role of Jan in Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll in London's West End.^{[citation needed]}

Continuing his theatre work, he starred at London's Donmar Warehouse as the protagonist in Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s existential drama Life is a Dream, for which he received glowing reviews.^[10]

In February 2011, it was announced that he would take on the title role in Simon Gray's classic comedy, Butley, playing at the Duchess Theatre in London from 1 June 2011^[11] and in the September he returned to his native Sheffield to play Iago to his former Wire co-star Clarke Peters's Othello at the Crucible Theatre.^[12]

Advertising[link]

In 2009, West starred in a series of online films known as "The Carte Noire Readers". Made to promote French coffee brand Carte Noire, they consist of actors reading love scenes from a selection of sources. West reads extracts from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen; Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence; High Fidelity by Nick Hornby; The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton; Life Class by Pat Barker; The Moment You Were Gone by Nicci Gerrard; and Something Childish But Very Natural by Katherine Mansfield.^[13]

Personal life[link]

West was born into an Irish Catholic family^[14][15] in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, the son of George West, who owned a plastics factory, and Moya, a housewife.^[16] West attended Eton College and Trinity College, Dublin.^[14][17][18] Dominic West graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, in 1995.^{[citation needed]}

In 1998 West and Polly Astor (the daughter of Michael Astor) had a daughter named Martha, who appeared in the film Creation in 2009 alongside Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly.^[19][20]

West and Catherine FitzGerald became engaged in 2007, and married in Glin, County Limerick, Ireland, on 26 June 2010.^[21] They have three children together: Dora, Senan and Francis.^{[citation needed]} Catherine FitzGerald is an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, being the daughter of Desmond FitzGerald, the 29th Knight of Glin, and was formerly married to The 7th Earl of Durham, then Viscount Lambton.^[14][22]

In November 2010, West was awarded an honorary degree for services to the Arts by Sheffield Hallam University.^[23]

In November 2011, West was also awarded the Honorary Patronage of the Philosophical Society of Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated from with a degree in English in previous years.^[24]

Films[link]

• 3 Joes (1991)
• Richard III (1995)
• True Blue (1996)
• Surviving Picasso (1996)
• The Gambler (1997)
• Diana & Me (1997)
• Spice World (1997)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999)
• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)
• A Christmas Carol (1999)
• 28 Days (2000)
• The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (2001)
• Rock Star (2001)
• Ten Minutes Older (2002)
• Chicago (2002)
• Mona Lisa Smile (2003)
• The Forgotten (2004)
• Hannibal Rising (2007)
• 300 (2007)
• Punisher: War Zone (2008)
• Centurion (2010)
• Jackboots on Whitehall (2010)
• From Time to Time (2010)
• Johnny English Reborn (2011)
• Arthur Christmas (2011)
• The Awakening (2011)
• John Carter (2012)

Television[link]

• The Wire (2002–08)
• The Catherine Tate Show (Guest Appearance as the Actor) (2006)
• The Devil's Whore (2008)
• Breaking the Mould: The Story of Penicillin (2009)
• Have I Got News For You (Guest Host) (2009)
• The Hour (2011)
• Appropriate Adult (2011)
• Children of the Tsunami (Narrator) (2012)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Dominic West at the Internet Movie Database
• Dominic West talks about his work with Eminem on Relapse

Aaron Paul
Aaron Paul in 2010
Born	Aaron Paul Sturtevant (1979-08-27) August 27, 1979 (age 32) Emmett, Idaho, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, Singer
Years active	1998–present

Aaron Michael Paul^[1] (born August 27, 1979) is an Emmy Award winning American actor and singer. After appearing in several roles in American television, including a recurring role on the HBO series Big Love, Paul came to prominence in 2008 for his critically acclaimed role in the AMC series Breaking Bad as Jesse Pinkman. Paul won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his role in the series.

Early life[link]

Paul was born Aaron Paul Sturtevant in Emmett, Idaho. He attended Centennial High School in Boise, Idaho.

Career[link]

Early in his career, Paul starred in videos for the band Korn, for their song "Thoughtless", and Everlast, for his song "White Trash Beautiful".^[2] He was also featured in television commercials for Juicy Fruit^[3] and Corn Pops.^[4]

Film[link]

Paul has appeared in the films Whatever It Takes (2000), Help! I'm a Fish (2001) (voice only), K-PAX (2001), MTV's TV Movie Wasted (2002), National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002), Perfect Opposites (2004), Bad Girls From Valley High (2005), Choking Man (2006), Mission: Impossible III (2006), The Last House on the Left (2009) among others. He also starred in the 2010 web released Funny or Die short Weird: The Al Yankovic Story as "Weird Al" Yankovic.^[5] Smashed, a film in which Paul stars, will be one of the official selections for the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.^[6]

Television[link]

Paul has also made guest appearances on television shows such as The Guardian, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, ER, Sleeper Cell, Veronica Mars, The X-Files, Ghost Whisperer, Criminal Minds, Bones and 3rd Rock from the Sun (season 4, episode 24).

His recurring character "Scott Quittman" on HBO's Big Love appeared 14 times over the show's five seasons.

In 2008, Paul began playing Jesse Pinkman on AMC's Breaking Bad. His character was originally planned to die during the first season, but after seeing the chemistry between Paul and series star Bryan Cranston series creator Vince Gilligan changed his mind, modified the original plans, and saved the character.^[7]

Paul had an opportunity to work with Cranston prior to Breaking Bad, having auditioned for the role of Francis, the eldest son of Cranston's Malcolm in the Middle character.^[8]

Personal life[link]

He is now engaged to Lauren Parsekian, who is the founder of the Kind Campaign. He proposed in Paris on December 31, 2011.

Paul and Parsekian reside in Santa Monica, California.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Aaron Paul

• Aaron Paul at the Internet Movie Database
• Aaron Paul discusses Breaking Bad at AMCtv.com

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]