Lord of the Rings!!! Does Miramax lack nerve'

From a brand spanking gnu (knew[new]) spy, who I'll refer to as Bombadil, we get more news on the Peter Jackson LORD OF THE RINGS. It looks like Miramax might not have the guts to make LORD OF THE RINGS!!! Shocking? You bet, I'm betting that Harvey and crew don't have a clue as to the interest on this project. I get more mail asking me about the Lord of the Rings film, than I do for the upcoming PREQUELS, and the film has just been rumored to exist. Why is that by the way? I'm betting it has to do with Miramax being afraid to come forth and announce they are working on it, because they wanted an easy out. All I can say, is if this story below is true. If the project has these people working on preproduction, then Harvey, Bob and the rest of Miramax needs to get a crowbar, pry their collective heads out of their asses and produce what could very well be the most lucrative film series made. Perhaps they are a bit afraid, undoubtedly it's an expensive project. Well if they are afraid, then give the project to a production company with the balls to make it. So far Miramax has stood for quality independent films. This would seem to signify that they stand for safe quality independent films. Perhaps they would not of had the cajones to produce a TITANIC or a STAR WARS. A project of independent vision, a vision so wide as to expand the screen itself. Hopefully I'm wrong, hopefully the below is untrue, hopefully Lord of the Rings is Peter Jackson's project that Miramax will finance ALL THE WAY. The profits from a well made Lord of the Rings would independently finance A LOT of movies. But maybe risks like these are for the Tom Rothmans and the Alan Ladd Jrs of the world. Here's the scoop, as Bombadil let it be known...

I got some good LORD OF THE RINGS stuff over the weekend. Here in Wellington there was a big China Boat thing on in the harbour, and whether it was the warm beer, or the sight of all those junks, some tongues started wagg'in. A guy/gal who works for WETA, who I will call "Old Man/Woman Willow", told me a bunch of interesting stuff. It ranges from good ... to really good ... too bad. Firstly he/she confirmed what I'd long suspected and said that it is definately LORD OF THE RINGS that Jackson is making, so lets forget all the HOBBIT crap. No one at WETA has been allowed to read the script yet, but Old Man/Woman Willow caught a sight of it sitting on his/her supervisors desk, and described it as "fat". I think this is the first known siting of the script! Can you imagine it? A fat wad of paper dripping with Middle-earth screen time! Old Man/Woman Willow said it looked like a 5 - 6 hour movie at least. If this is remotely true, then maybe Jackson is doing it right, if you think it should be filmed at all, which I'm still not sure about. As you reported a while back, Alan Lee and John Howe are both holed up here in Wellington, working with the WETA design guys. Lee and Howe are the worlds two primo Tolkien artists, and I thought of them colaborating on the movie is enough to cause heart flutter amongst us true Tolkien fans. According to Old Man/Woman Willow the stuff coming out of the WETA design shop "kicks arse!" Shit, now for the bad news: Mirimax intends to close the whole thing down on Friday! Old Man/Woman Willow says he/she has been told to expect to be laid off. The mood at WETA is very angry towards Mirimax. According to Old Man/Woman Willow, they have been jerked around for months and "have had a gutsfull!" They said Jackson is tearing his hair out. He is so pissed off with Mirimax about their lack of support he is about to move onto another film. Old Man/Woman Willow thought this might be a kids film that Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh are wanting to make, but another source I have who is close to Jackson at WingNut Films says that he has been offered a Sci-Fi film and he may decide to sign onto it before the end of the week. That would make sense because it would keep all his WETA guys busy. I'm seeing Old Man/Woman Willow tomorrow (yeah, ok, he/she is attractive and single!) and will report on developments.