Nice interview by Frenchman Geoff Boucher at the LA Times. P-Jack talks about Neill Blomkamp’s terrible “first film experience” with Halo falling apart, and how they dealt with it:
We don’t own the ‘Halo’ franchise. We can’t raise the money somewhere else. It’s their property, they’ve got the license for it. So the way to avoid this [happening again] is to do something original, to do it at a lower budget, finance it independently, and not finance it through a studio. You know, there are ways of avoiding it. We came up with the idea for ‘District 9.’
Between this and the video below of Peter Jackson discussing turning in a draft of The Hobbit, it’s truly stunning to me that a man who basically made 3.5 BILLION DOLLARS (for the LOTR films and King Kong) still has to get script approval. He won Best Director Oscar. He still has to get studio notes? That seems… what’s the phrase I’m looking for? Ludicrously asinine.
If I’m handling money for a studio, and someone says, “Peter Jackson wants to make a movie about cannibal panda bears who shoot acid out of their butts,” I say, “Sweet. Here’s 200 million. Tell him to have fun.”
(BTW, I’ve copyrighted “Cannibal Panda Bears That Shoot Acid Out Their Butts.” Just try me, punk. My lawyers pounce like starving cheetahs.)
District 9 trailer here.
Kenwoode 