Peter Jackson Chooses Napoleon Over Bilbo

Secrets are very difficult to keep in New Zealand. After months of denying it, Peter Jackson announced that his company would indeed be re-making The Dam Busters. This was quite obvious to most of us. I was in Wellington for work a few weeks ago and we drove past his converted paint factory/academy award winning production studios and there was a large airplane propellor rotating in front of a green screen in the parking lot. I certainly don't remember that chapter in The Lovely Bones.

However, he's not going to be remaking it himself. It will be directed by one of his long-haired geekwizards from Weta; Christian Rivers. I mention this because it was announced yesterday that MGM wants Peter Jackson to direct The Hobbit. Well, who doesn't?

Now we find out that the big man himself has optioned a story about a British naval officer who trains dragons to fight Napoleon. This would be what they meant when his people said he "had a full slate."

At the moment that means he has Halo, The Dam Busters, The Lovely Bones and now the Temeraire series in various stages of development, preproduction and production. Hooray for a kiwi filmmaker's success and hooray for the New Zealand Film Industry. But I have a small concern:

The Hobbit sucks.

It's basically just a gastronomic tour of Middle Earth with too much alliteration. If someone other than Peter Jackson directs it then it will likely be appallingly lame and run the risk of tainting his flawless Lord of The Rings trilogy. He somehow managed to make the absurd parts of the LOTR novels seem dramatic and realistic. Or he cut them. (Tom Bombadil.) Someone with those skills is even more important for a film adaptation of Tolkien's first Baggins story.

We've seen that he has the ability to delegate. He's EPing for Halo, he's roped a nerd into directing The Dam Busters... Delegate some more, PJ. Delegate and come back to Middle Earth. Its fate is in your hands.