KEY POINTS:
Wellington film maker Peter Jackson -- recently named by Forbes magazine as the world's 21st most powerful celebrity -- this week snubbed New Line Cinema as he shopped around his script for The Lovely Bones.
The Los Angeles Times today reported that Jackson -- who is looking for a studio partner on the project -- on Monday sent out a script of The Lovely Bones to every major American studio but New Line.
Jackson also sent it to some smaller studios, such as United Artists, Variety magazine reported.
Jackson and his Wingnut company are caught up in a continuing legal dispute with New Line over royalties on the Lord of the Rings trilogy, for which he won three Academy Awards in 2003. The LOTR films which have grossed more than $US3 billion ($NZ4.09 billion) in ticket sales alone since 2001.
Two years after his King Kong hit, Jackson is now looking for a new studio partner to finance and distribute the movie of Alice Sebold's bestselling novel, which he has adapted with writers Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh.
The book was written from the perspective of Susie Salmon, a 14-year-old girl who, after being raped and murdered, continues to observe her family, as they cope with her absence, and her killer.
Last November, in a letter posted on the website TheOneRing.net, Jackson told fans that because of continuing dispute between his production company Wingnut Films and New Line, he would not be directing The Hobbit, for which the rights are held by New Line.
New Line Cinema's head, Robert Shaye, said Jackson "will never make any movie with New Line Cinema again while I'm still working for the company".
New York magazine today reported DreamWorks wanted to buy the Bones screenplay, but noted an assistant to Jackson's agent, Ken Kamins, had stated that the script was not yet sold and that they were "entertaining multiple offers".
"We're hearing that the jaw-dropper amid all this chatter is the claim that Jackson's projected budget for the film is $US65 million ($NZ88.7 million), not counting Jackson's ... directing and producing fees," the magazine reported.
Jackson was listed at number 21 on Forbes' magazine's list of the 100 most powerful celebrities in the world, where it estimated he earned $US39 million ($NZ53 million) in the year to June 2006). Tom Cruise, The Rolling Stones and Oprah Winfrey were the top three on the list, which claimed to measure measures both earnings and a celebrity's influence within their respective field.
Jackson's most recent film was a short called Crossing the Line. The 12 minutes of footage featured World War I trench warfare and an aerial battle between German and English biplanes in World War 1. It was shot in late March, at an airstrip one hour north of Wellington, to test a new digital camera system called Red One 4K, and a 30 second excerpt and some stills have been distributed on the Internet.
The footage was used to demonstrate the prototype technology to last month's National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas.
- NZPA
