The high profile battle between Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema's Bob Shaye is getting even nastier as Shaye lashed out a Jackson again this week saying, "I don't care about Peter Jackson anymore. He wants to have another $100 million or $50 million, whatever he's suing us for. He doesn't want to sit down and talk about it. He thinks that we owe him something after we've paid him over a quarter of a billion dollars...Cheers, Peter."
Jackson responded: "Fundamentally, our legal action is about holding New Line to its contractual obligations and promises. It is regrettable that Bob has chosen to make it personal. I have always had the highest respect and affection for Bob and 
other senior management at New Line and continue to do so. But the studio was and continues to be completely uncooperative [regarding an open audit of the films' books]. This has compelled us to file a lawsuit to pursue our contractual rights under the law. Nobody likes legal action, but the studio left us with no alternative."
The real unfortunate loser in this feud may be the fans. Those who make up the core group that are Lord of the Ring and Tolkien fans, are far more emotionally connected to the franchise than most fan groups to other movies. They've now transferred that connection to Jackson, which will be very difficult to overcome by New Line.
Jackson's right on one point especially, and that is that rather than objectively letting things go through the process and see what the decision in court brings, it has become intensely personal and nasty.
New Line of course has a real dilemna as Shaye is the one that gave the go ahead to take a chance on Jackson and Lord of the Rings in the first place, but now seems to have drawn a line in the sand that may give the studio no way of having them both participate in the upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel, "The Hobbit."
Shaye said that there is no way that Jackson will work on a film with New Line saying ..."It will never happen during my watch."
What happens if fans overwhelmingly bombard New Line with demands that Jackson be the director? There's no way that New Line can win in that. Either they would lose Shaye or Jackson won't be the director.
Do you think that Jackson will end up being director?
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