Peter Jackson said Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit gave him a two-year nightmare

PETER Jackson has revealed how his popular Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films left him with a bizarre, recurring nightmare for two years. Literally.

Looking forward to a rest ... Peter Jackson, with his wife Fran Walsh, far left, and their children Katie, second from left, and Billy. Picture: Chris Pizzello

FOR a mad-keen Tolkien fan who discovered the English author’s work as a teenager, making The Hobbit and The Lord Of the Rings movies has been a dream come true for director Peter Jackson.

But at times, the Oscar-winning Kiwi admits, it has also been a nightmare. Literally.

“The first day I start shooting I start having a recurring nightmare that every single night that I am lying in bed and there is a film crew surrounding the bed, waiting for me to tell them what to do and I don’t quite know what movie I am supposed to be making,” he says.

“There’s not even a script and they are all standing there needing to have information from me and I am tired and exhausted and can barely think straight. That nightmare starts on the first day of shooting and it’s every night until the last day of shooting and then it stops. It’s hell, because I have all day on set, and then I go to sleep and I’m all bloody night on set as well.”

When you consider that principal photography for the Hobbit trilogy lasted for 266 days, and 438 days for the three Lord Of the Rings movies, that’s closing in on two years of night terrors. Just as well he loves his day job.

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A daily nightmare for two years ... Director Peter Jackson promoting the film The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies in London. Picture: Joel Ryan

The release of The Hobbit: The Battle Of the Five Armies on Boxing Day marks the end of an extraordinary 17-year journey for Jackson, which has seen the movies capture a haul of Oscars (17 in total, including Best Director and Best Picture for The Return Of the King), more than $5 billion at the box office, and turned his hometown, Wellington, into a global film hub.

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Winners ... Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson, and Philippa Boyens with the Oscars for The Return of the King. Picture: Jeff Haynes

Throughout it all, the affable and understated director has presided over hundreds of millions of studio dollars, thousands of cast and crew, remote locations, enormous sets and technological breakthroughs that have changed the face of filmmaking.

But despite admitting he could use a good rest and maybe some time on the beach, he says it’s the fun he is going to miss most of all.

“Making films like this is very hard and it would be bloody hell if it’s not fun,” he says. “I want to enjoy myself and fortunately we just had such a fantastic cast and they are all very funny people Outside of the fact that the cameras were rolling and we were all doing our part to make the movie, as soon as the cameras stopped rolling it was just fun.”

That’s not to say he didn’t feel the pressure. Fans of J.R.R Tolkien are, to put it mildly, passionate. At the recent London premiere of the Battle Of the Five Armies, grown men and women roamed the streets in broad daylight in full Elven regalia, pointy ears and all. Jackson is used to fan outrage. The then-fledgling internet exploded in the late ‘90s when it was announced that the man behind cult splatter films such as Brain Dead and Bad Taste was being given the keys to the kingdoms of Middle Earth. And despite the critical and commercial acclaim earned by the LOTR trilogy, more howls of outrage emerged when it was announced the rather slender children’s tale, The Hobbit, was going to be three films and would feature characters that didn’t feature in the book and in some cases didn’t even appear in the entire Tolkien universe.

“We had such a fantastic cast” ... Peter Jackson with Ian McKellen on the set of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

While freely acknowledging that liberties have been taken with the source material Jackson says that he intended for the three Hobbit films and the three LOTR films to be all part of one bigger series, eventually to be discovered and viewed in that order by future fans. And the box office would suggest he has been vindicated — the first two Hobbit films An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug have made more than $2 billion, and there’s every reason to suggest the Battle Of Five Armies will add substantially to that box office horde.

“For me, utter failure is to make a film that people pay their money to go see and they don’t like,” Jackson says of his creative licence. “From that point of view I am sure there are people who saw these films and didn’t like them, but the majority of people from what we can see have enjoyed them. For me, that’s why we do what we do — to give people a good time at the movies.”

Father-of-two Jackson (his partner in business and life Fran Walsh co-wrote and co-produced The Hobbit and LOTR films) understands what it is to be a fan too. As an only child growing up in coastal Pukerua Bay in New Zealand, seeing the 1933 version of King Kong as an eight-year-old opened his eyes to the endless potential of fantastical worlds and put him on the path of filmmaking he has pursued relentlessly ever since.

Looking forward to a rest ... Peter Jackson, with his wife Fran Walsh, far left, and their children Katie, second from left, and Billy. Picture: Chris Pizzello

His Wellington office, from which he oversees a movie empire that includes world-class, groundbreaking effects companies Weta Digital and Weta Workshops, is decked out with movie memorabilia and he hopes his movies will similarly inspire the next generation of filmmakers.

“I am sitting here today being the result of TV and films I saw as a kid,” he says. “The Thunderbirds, King Kong, the Ray Harryhausen movies — they are the reason why I am here. They excited me, they inspired me to become obsessive about making films. It would be a wonderful, wonderful thing if there are kids today getting affected by our films in the same way. I would be truly proud of that.”

Next up for Jackson — once he’s put in a few months next year on the extended DVD cut of The Battle Of the Five Armies — is the sequel to The Adventures of Tintin movie he made with Steven Spielberg. And 20 years on from his breakthrough drama, Heavenly Creatures, he’d also like to make another smaller film set in his home land. Whether he ever returns to Middle Earth — there’s still the sprawling Silmarillion and various other tales in the Tolkien canon — it entirely out of his hands for now.

“The Tolkien estate owns the writings of Professor Tolkien,” he says. “But the film rights for The Hobbit and The Lord Of the Rings were sold by Professor Tolkien in the late ‘60s. They are the only two works that have ever been sold. So without the co-operation of the Tolkien estate, there can’t be any more films.”

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies opens on Boxing Day