Jackson top of the heap in Hollywood power list

Peter Jackson

The Lord Of The Rings trilogy director Peter Jackson is to be named next month as Hollywood's most powerful person.

The title is to be bestowed by the influential Premiere magazine in its June edition, the Ananova news website says.

Premiere ranked him at sixth last year, 20th in 2003 and 41st in 2002.

The New Zealander has been called one of the few "one-man-band productions that are changing the grid of the power structure", the website reported.

Jackson has pipped producer-director Steve Spielberg, second. Steve Jobs and John Lasseter, heads of Pixar animation company, fell from last year's top spot to third.

Among the actors on the list are Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks, Will Smith and Johnny Depp.

Forbes magazine reported last year that Jackson was one of the richest and most powerful people in the movie business. It said he had earned $165 million from the three Ring films, and had been paid an upfront fee of $27 million to direct and produce King Kong.

It reported that he had ploughed up to $50 million of his own money into creating his Wellington studio complex and sound stage, and was a part-owner of the Weta digital special effects company and prop-maker Weta Workshop.

- NZPA