Peter Jackson Lord Of The Rings

Despite initial reports from Amazon and Peter Jackson that he would not be involved in the development of their ‘Lord Of The Rings’ series, it seems things may have changed recently. Recently while out promoting his new movie ‘The Mortal Engines,’ Peter Jackson was asked by Metro about his thoughts on the new Amazon series, to which he replied:

“I don’t have thoughts on it because I haven’t seen [anything]. I think they’re going to send us some scripts to see if we can help them along…I wish them all the best and if we can help them we certainly will try. ‘It’s a big task.”

Which is slightly different than an answer he gave before, which hinted that he would not have much, if anything, to do with the new series, and he was looking forward to it:

“I’m kind of looking forward to it. I was a guy who didn’t get to see The Lord of the Rings like everybody else because I had to make it, so I’m looking forward to seeing somebody else’s take on the Tolkien world.”

Seems to me that he may be a kind of consultant now, maybe even get writing credit if he tweaks the scripts enough, and it all seems to be in an effort to maintain consistency of quality and continuity with his original films, at least from my point of view.

This does go with the rumors that the new series will be about characters we know from the movies, though little else is really known about what stories the series is going to tackle. When questioned about that very topic, Amazon head of original television Jennifer Salke stated the following:

“I’ve sat with Simon Tolkien [JRR Tolkien’s grandson] for a couple of hours, and (Amazon TV executive) Sharon (Tal Yguado) has spent tons of time with them. She had spent the last couple of months meeting anyone who had said, ‘I’m really passionate about it and I want to get in and talk about the show and what’s possible.’ I think you’ll see us honing in on a strategy in the next month, which might involve a group of writers. Clearly, there’ll be someone in charge, but it involves the estate and Peter Jackson, and there’s a lot of conversations…I think you can know that we’re not remaking the movies, but we’re also not starting from scratch. So, it’ll be characters you love.”

What are your thoughts on Peter Jackon’s involvement? Do you think it will help? Or should the man just completely step aside and let someone else’s vision define the series? Feel free to share your opinions in the comments below!