No More 'Rings' for Peter Jackson

Posted Tuesday, November 21, 2006 at 3:38 PM Central

by John Couture

This week turned into an episode of "Days of our Lives" in Middle-Earth when director Peter Jackson took his fight over Tolkein's stories to the public. Long story short, Jackson sued New Line alleging accounting problems that shorted him a bunch of money from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

New Line apparently shot back dangling the carrot of making two more Middle-Earth prequels if Jackson settled for a low number. On Friday, New Line (whose film rights are creeping towards expiration) called Peter Jackson's manager Ken Kamins and told him that the studio would no longer need the director for their planned prequels.

Jackson responded by posting a diatribe on his website TheOneRing.net. Among the things that Jackson griped about, he confirmed to fans that he will not be involved with the Lord of the Rings prequels in any capacity.

Needless to say, that angered fanboys everywhere and now it seems that everyone is going to lose.