The red carpet event for the World Premiere of the final Hobbit movie, The Battle of the Five Armies was broadcast to all four corners of the world and the Shire last week (though for majority of the people in Leicester Square it may have seemed like simply a lot of light and noise from behind massive black three-storey Mordor-esque barricades that completely blocked the view of all but the lucky few).
But if history and expectation are anything to go by - and they very much are - then it's fair to say that a LOT of people will be seeing this final film based on J R R Tolkien's seminal fantasy wok for themselves very soon.
While occasionally taking forays into Lovely Bones and less lovely giant gorillas, Middle-earth (or at least it's New Zealand equivalent) has consistently been the home for Peter Jackson and his crew for over a decade. The original Lord of the Rings trilogy is rightly seen as an achievement on an epic scale - the man previously known for the likes of The Frighteners, Braindead and Meet the Feebles suddenly proving his solid A-List credentials and bringing J R R Tolkien's saga of magic, power and previous things to marvelous life. But when the third 'Rings' film debuted many suspected that Jackson would be drawing a line under elves, dwarves and goblins. It turned out he hadn't. Surprising some, possibly even himself, he ultimately looked towards an adaptation of the less densely-packed The Hobbit (the earlier adventures of Bilbo Baggins) and controversially expanded out the story to fit first two movies and then a full trilogy. Not since George Lucas had such a multi-generational saga been attempted.
Even the faithful shifted slightly in their seats - there was no doubt that the hi-def hobbits would be amazing and the orcs would be awesome but was the stretching of the saga a money-making exercise that would dilute the endeavour and feel like mining the box-office rather than catering for the creative?
"The very first phone call Fran and I made about these projects, which was seventeen years ago, was to Harvey Weinstein. And the pitch to Harvey was, ‘If you can get us the rights to these books we’d like to make The Hobbit as one film and if it's successful then we’d like to do The Lord of the Rings as two movies back-to-back’. That was our big, grand plan and then... seventeen years later its sort of become six movies. We did it the wrong way round. We did The Lord of the Rings first, The Hobbit was gonna be two movies and then it was three," Jackson explains. "It’s all very weird. It’s not within your control. It’s circumstances and fate pushing you around. The one thing that I think I’m very proud of when you see them all together is that I think when people do see the six films as a series - in the right order - that they’ll sort of sense that there was some vague design behind it all. Children who are too young now – three years old, four years old – can see these films in a few years from The Hobbit 1 through to Return of the King. So very soon we’re not going to have this back-to-front thing, it’ll exist as the six films story that it should be..."
Much to his chagrin, Weinstein might have backed away from early support - with New Line stepping in to fill the void - but from the start, Jackson says he appreciated the huge risk that was being undertaken by everyone. And he took that responsibility seriously until the final film was delivered.
"I don’t have that responsibility anymore. I can go to the beach..." he smiles, almost wearily. "Any film is your responsibility because you’re spending money that’s not yours, so you’ve got to be responsible for that. I also feel very responsible for the fact that you’re trying to entertain people. And for me utter failure is to make a film that people go to but that they hate. They pay their money for something they don’t like. So I’m sure there are people that have seen these movies that don’t like them but from what we can see the majority of people enjoy them so for me that’s why I want to give people a good time at the movies."
He's definitely done that - and done so in parallel with being at the forefront of innovative technology, pushing the boundaries of what was possible in visual effects to the point where they were creating shots that had never been attempted before on a similar scale...
"You (raise the bar) because you have to. It's not a chicken and egg situation where you develop the technology and then need to find a script that we can use it on. Once we started the Tolkien movies, we had to write software to create characters and scenes that didn't exist. It's always the that technology is driven by the needs of the story that you're telling," he notes. "If, seventeen years I wanted to do a drama set in a fish-and-chip shop then we wouldn't have developed performance capture... unless we wanted the cod to jump around a lot! You start with a project and story and think 'How the hell are we going to do it?' THAT's what pushes technology along."
It has been both a hard and fun project - over a decade of work when you look at the original efforts, the pre-production, actual filming, editing and post production and releases - but what will the director miss most about this latest significant chapter of his career (and life)...
"Every time I make a movie - and this was no exception - the first day I start shooting I start having a recurring nightmare like I'm lying in bed and there's a film crew surrounding the bed waiting for me to tell them what to do and I don't know what movie I'm actually making. I don't know if there's even a script and they're all standing there wondering and wanting information from me. I'm tired and I can barely think straight. Honestly, that starts like clockwork on the first day of shooting and its every night until the last day of shooting. Then it stops. It's hell. I'm on set all day and then as soon as I'm asleep on the set again as well!" he explains. "I'm going to miss the fun on the set. Making films is very very hard and if you are making three of them like this over 266 days of shooting it can be bloody hell if it's not fun. I felt obligated to go to work in the morning and have fun. Fortunately it's such a fantastic cast who are all very, very funny people. Outside of the fact the cameras were rolling, we were all doing our part to make the movie... as soon as the cameras stopped rolling it was still fun. It was an enjoyable way to spend the day. I'm certainly going to miss that," he muses.
But is this REALLY the end? Tolkien set other books in the mythos of Middle-earth and tomes such as The Silmarillion remain un-filmed. Surely there's a possibility that Jackson could yet be tempted back? Though he doesn't rule it out, Jackson points out that everything that is currently available to be filmed, within existing rights, has already been so. The rest of the material still remains solely with the Tolkien Estate.
"We have the extended cut of The Battle of the Five Armies, which is going to be a fantastic extended cut, there’s some really great stuff. I go back to New Zealand in the new year for four or five months, putting it back together, which’ll be fun, because there’s some quite good stuff in it, so I’m looking forward to that," the director notes. "But, no, it’s a legal thing. The Tolkien estate owns the writings of Professor Tolkien. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were sold by Professor Tolkien in the late ‘60s – the film rights – but they are the only two works of his that have ever been sold. So without the co-operation of the Tolkien estate there can’t be more films."
Given the phenomenal critical and financial success that Jackson and his team have had with their tales of Middle-earth, it's tempting to think that the Tolkien Estate and Jackson might yet come to terms on future projects. But until then Peter Jackson has probably earned that spot on the beach.
All Orc and no play? Perhaps, after mythical creatures, a return to his smaller, more intimate films such as Heavenly Creatures is on the cards? We'll find out soon enough as we go there and back again...
'The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies' is a co-production between Warner Bros., Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer Pictures and New Line Cinema and opens across the UK on 12th December...
