Kizyr wrote:
I gotta agree with both parts there... I think Jackson would do a great job with The Hobbit. And he's already proven his success with the LotR trilogy. Yeah, so it diverges from the books, but they were some incredibly good movies nevertheless.
I'm curious to hear what MGM's reasons were for looking for someone besides Jackson to do this. KF
This is what I heard. Apparently, Jackson's contract with MGM for making LotR stipulated that he was going to get a percentage of the gross earnings for the film -- not too unusual in and of itself. However, here's where things get messy.
Hollywood studios are notorious for not using accounting practices that would be considered legal by any other industry. Basically, they use all sorts of dirty tricks so that it looks like, on paper, that while a movie like the LotR trilogy made tons of cash, the studio actually
lost money on the film. Supposedly they have enough lobbying power in government to grease the palms of whoever it takes to prevent them from being investigated on these illegal activities.
It is because of these activities that many people working in movies ask for contracts that either pay a flat fee and/or a percentage of the gross earnings (before costs) for a given movie. There have been many documented cases in the past where someone asked for a percentage of the profits, only to have the dirty Hollywood accounting practices claim that they aren't entitled to anything because they lost money on the movie, no matter how big a hit it was.
Jackson, as I said, had a contract that said he was due a cut of the gross earnings. However, he feels that MGM still used shifty accounting methods to stiff him of some of the cash. He therefore asked for an independent auditor to be assigned (I think he even said he would pay for the audit himself) to investigate MGM's books to find out if he was in fact paid what he was owed. MGM is raising the stink because A) they probably did stiff Jackson and B) any independent audit will give solid evidence as to the dirty practices of their accounting and therefore might force lawmakers to come down hard on them and their studios ala when everything hit the fan with Enron.
I'm not 100% sure if Jackson is after this solely to get what he's owed (since he still did get a ton of cash for LotR, even if he was stiffed) or to expose the bad accounting practices of the studios so no one else can get screwed or some combination of the above.