Anything You Can Imagine: Peter Jackson and the Making of Middle-earth

Here too was Jackson and Walsh’s growing felicity for casting. Neither had done any significant acting, and this would be an astonishing exercise in sustained hysteria. Walsh discovered Lynskey at a Christchurch high school near to where the real girls first met. She was looking for someone who in any way resembled Pauline.

‘This girl really loves acting,’ her teacher had said, pointing out Lynskey. ‘She puts on plays that nobody wants to see.’

For the superior, pretty fantasist, Juliet — who had lately arrived from England — Jackson had plucked an unknown British girl from Reading from 600 hopefuls. Kate Winslet had been working in a delicatessen when the call came.

‘I’ll never forget it as long as I live … I actually fell on my knees,’ she admitted. Within four years Winslet would be one of the most famous faces on the planet, star of James Cameron’s Titanic.

Here too is the promise of a cinematic New Zealand being unveiled: the unique light; the vast, primordial landscape; and the confidence with which the local crew rose to the challenges set before them by their ambitious director.

Perhaps most significantly, Jackson would inaugurate a new digital division of his and Richard Taylor’s special effects house, Weta (named after a local cricket-like bug

), in order to create the abstract world of the girls’ flowering imaginations. Key to understanding Hulme and Parker’s descent into murder is the film’s ability to slip inside the sickly dreamspace of their conjoined imaginations. A similar sympathy for the devil would be applied to the depiction of Gollum (over which Walsh would have a significant influence).

Between them, the girls invented their own fantasy world. Borovnia would become more meaningful than reality: they traced royal lineages back over the centuries and wrote melodramatic adventure stories set within its colourful bounds, thirteen novels’ worth. They dreamed of having them adapted into big Hollywood movies starring tacky 1950s heartthrob Mario Lanza. Movie mad, we catch them watching Orson Welles in The Third Man, and Jackson does a brief rendition of noir in its honour. The resonances — and ironies — are there for all to see.

It was a film about the dangers of losing yourself inside a fantasy world.

Weta was still a single unit at this time. Taylor’s workshop would make the rubber suits for the actors playing the ‘living’ versions of the Plasticene Borovnians the remarkable girls sculpted. Led by George Port, who had worked with Jackson since Meet the Feebles, Weta also ambitiously pursued a series of digital effects shots inspired by the groundbreaking work of Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day. ‘What the Hell,’ was Jackson’s attitude, ‘let’s try.’ Their computer graphics department boasted a solitary Silicon Graphics SGI computer and a scanner. Which thankfully came with an instruction manual. By post-production on The Two Towers, Weta Digital would boast the largest amount of processing power in the Southern Hemisphere.

There are fewer CGI shots in Heavenly Creatures than is generally recognized. Taylor takes it as a compliment that his prosthetics are mistaken for CGI. The true digital shots were localized to Christchurch’s Port Levy morphing into a too-colourful, too-exquisite ornamental garden, complete with giant butterflies.

Extraordinary for 1994, these digital effects now appear charmingly antiquated, but that somehow makes them more fitting for the strange climate of the film. Jackson was using visual effects to express emotions.

‘And all for a three-and-a-half-million dollar budget,’ announces Kamins proudly. Behind him on his office wall there is a framed poster of Heavenly Creatures, with the girls leaping into a pristine lake, a film that remains not only an early marker of Jackson’s prowess, but a minor classic in its own right.

New Zealand might be a long way from Hollywood, and leagues further from New York, where Miramax resided in the hip Lower Manhattan neighbourhood of Tribeca. However, word soon reached Harvey that this was a significant film. There was a scramble to pick up the American rights, and Miramax’s bullyboy sprang into action, elbowing aside competitors and making entreaties to Jackson. Miramax’s Vice President of Acquisitions, David Linde, was despatched to Wellington to see an early cut. Blown away both by the film and the young director, he reported back to Harvey that something major was growing in New Zealand. Linde has remained a good friend to Jackson ever since.

Harvey, wielding his considerable clout, swiftly acquired Heavenly Creatures for distribution and negotiated a prestigious berth for its world premiere — opening The Venice Film Festival.

Being picked up by Miramax had distinct advantages. Founded in 1979 by the two brothers from Buffalo, brash in manner but brilliantly acute in business, it had risen to prominence through films as diverse as My Left Foot; sex, lies and videotape; and Reservoir Dogs. It would rise yet further on the glories of Pulp Fiction and The English Patient to come. Bob Weinstein handled the genre side of the business through the Dimension label, but both brothers always had their say.

The disadvantage was the Weinstein temperament. When things were sunny, all was well. Cross them, particularly Harvey, often over things that ordinarily appear reasonable or, at least, professional, and he would rain down his righteous (or not) fury. It was also a prime negotiating tactic. This was, of course, long before multiple accusations of sexual harassment and worse would bring about an ignominious downfall for the mighty Harvey, sending shockwaves across Hollywood. At this time, he was merely viewed as an industry bully boy.

In 1993, flushed with success, the brothers sold Miramax to Disney for $75 million. They would remain at the helm, with the power to greenlight a film up to the significant figure of $15 million. Any higher and they would require the consent of Disney’s hierarchy. Inevitably, the brothers would come to chafe against such restrictions.

After a lauded run at the box office, and with the assistance of Harvey’s golden touch at the Academy, Heavenly Creatures was nominated for Best Original Screenplay.

‘Boom!’ declares Kamins. ‘The whole perception changed the second the film got nominated. I mean, everything changed — perceptually. Now I got my calls returned and the speed with which I got them returned changed; the kinds of conversations that we were having. Everything shifted. Not even in ways that sort of guided a specific path, but just atmospherically it all felt different.’

Smartly, as well as agreeing a deal to distribute Heavenly Creatures in America, Harvey had insisted on pinning down Jackson to a first-look deal with Miramax. While offering an avenue for any new film idea he might have, it would soon feel like he was tied to Weinstein’s often inflexible apron strings, who now had a prize, Oscar-nominated asset.

Jackson would never bind himself to a studio again. ‘It was sort of a strange thing where they would pay some overheads: an office and some people we could hire. In exchange for that they get first refusal on any script we wanted to do. If they say no that’s fine, you can take it somewhere else. Also if you get offered something you are allowed to go and take it. It is not like an old studio contract where you are locked into MGM.’

He would ultimately never make a film with Miramax.

*

First Jackson met Robert Zemeckis, and together they made The Frighteners, a warped comedy-horror about a spiritual conman (played by Back to the Future’s Michael J. Fox) who can actually behold ghosts. It was to be Jacksons’ first studio picture. Universal were attracted to a commercial-sounding mash-up of Ghostbusters, the Elm Street movies and this New Zealand hotshot revealing a knack for visual effects.

Fox’s Frank Bannister begins to realize the Northern Californian coastal town of Fairwater (actually Lyttleton in New Zealand) where he plies his supernatural scams is also being terrorized by an undead serial killer in the guise of the Grim Reaper — a killer only he can see. The visual effects requirements were bold: Bannister would interact with a trio of quirky, translucent ghosts, as pliable as cartoons, as well as the Reaper figure, which flits across town like a runaway kite (and not dissimilar in appearance to Ringwraiths). It would take six months to complete, with scenes being shot in duplicate to insert the ribald ghosts. Jackson’s Sitges friend Rick Baker would provide the rotting-corpse make-up for the dread departed.

Sprawling and tonally uncertain, yet still underappreciated, The Frighteners tends to be forgotten in the journey between the early splatters to the coming of age with Heavenly Creatures, which is seen to segue straight into Middle-earth. If anything, it is viewed as a backwards step in the direction of the rabble-rousing days of those early horror movies.

To Jackson’s mind, here lies the true point of transition to The Lord of the Rings. Without it spans a different career, one that might have made him less global, but no less valuable; making films with more of a New Zealand spirit like Jane Campion. But Jackson’s instincts were always toward the commercial.

The project had begun life out of desperation. With Heavenly Creatures still awaiting the go-ahead, Jackson and Walsh were badly in need of some work. ‘They needed to make some money,’ clarifies Kamins.

Jackson had sounded urgent on the phone. ‘We need a writing job. What’s out there?’

Fortuitously, Kamins had been in a staff meeting where he had heard about Zemeckis’ involvement in Joel Silver’s portmanteau Tales from the Crypt movie. Different directors would provide their own segments of horror, and Zemeckis, he was told, was still in need of a screenplay. Springing into action, Jackson and Walsh worked up a two-page outline based on an idea they’d had while walking to the shops for milk, the story of a conman who is in cahoots with ghosts. Zemeckis was intrigued. At that stage, he hadn’t even realized Jackson was a director; he just figured they were these quirky writers from New Zealand.

‘I tell you what,’ said Zemeckis, ‘you go write the screenplay, I’ve got to make this movie called Forrest Gump.’

‘Well, that’s fine,’ replied Jackson, ‘because we have this movie we’re going to make called Heavenly Creatures.’ They would work on The Frighteners script while shooting their matricidal drama – the two being closer in theme than is immediately apparent.

Then fate got involved: Forrest Gump became an Oscar-winning phenomenon and Zemeckis lost his taste for a Tales from the Crypt movie. Now very much aware of Jackson as a director, Zemeckis suggested he direct it as a standalone film, which he would produce for a budget of $26 million.

‘The Frighteners matters for two key reasons,’ says Kamins. ‘Number one: it allowed for the build-up of Weta Digital conceptually, which had been a very small unit on Heavenly Creatures. The Frighteners would require over 500 visual effects shots, even at that budget, and Peter had the vision to say, “We can create a bigger visual effects company.”’

Jackson’s plan was typically practical, typically New Zealand: they would lease more computers from Silicon Graphics, then hire out-of-work animators from all over the world, people who were just sitting at home, and double their weekly salaries to come to New Zealand. The only overheads would be space. They would still be able to create visual effects shots much cheaper than ILM. And, sure enough, that’s what happened.

The Frighteners also matters, adds Kamins, because Zemeckis and his partner Steve Starkey would give Jackson and Walsh invaluable tuition on how to navigate the political waters that come with a studio project: ‘What they need to know and when; how to manage their expectations; when to get them excited about things; and when to hold back on information; how to keep them confident, but not in your hair.’

So coming full circle, as Weta were revealing their potential on the visual effects on The Frighteners, Jackson and Walsh’s thoughts turned to the future and the potential of making a fantasy film. However, one morning’s casual discussion was actually several weeks of brainstorming fantasy concepts. ‘It had been a long time since I had read The Lord of the Rings,’ admits Jackson. Fifteen years had now passed since he had waded through the Bakshi tie-in edition, and he really couldn’t remember it at all well.

Whatever ideas he came up with, Walsh and her watertight memory would shoot down: ‘No, no, no. You can’t do that — that’s just The Lord of the Rings.’

Jackson sighs. ‘You don’t want to be seen to be stealing stuff.’

His thought had been to do an original fantasy film, but at every proposal he made Walsh kept on repeating it like a mantra: ‘The Lord of the Rings … The Lord of the Rings … The Lord of the Rings.’

‘It was getting frustrating.’

When he was a teen, no more than sixteen, already displaying a rapacious hunger for filmmaking, Jackson set out to make a Super-8 Sinbad film. There was to be a scene of him fighting a stop-motion skeleton in the surf. He shot himself hip deep in Pukerua Bay swinging a homemade sword, but he never got round to putting in the skeleton. Which was down to the fact that, with the tide heading out, Jackson had dived straight onto an exposed rock. Severe bruising led to a pilonidal cyst which led to surgery. He also hadn’t quite yet figured out how to do stop-motion.

During the Bad Taste era, he had considered shooting a Conan-type film on 16mm at the weekends. ‘I never got any further than swords and monster masks,’ he admits. ‘I had never actually sat down and written a script.’

Truth be told, there was no specific, original sword ‘n’ sorcery concept he’d been yearning to make. It was simply that the genre appealed to his sensibility and offered the chance for Weta to keep expanding. So, why not The Lord of the Rings? Frodo’s enduring tale was the ne plus ultra of the genre. It was fantasy operating on an equivalent dramatic level to Heavenly Creatures.

According to prevailing Hollywood wisdom, fantasy, as a genre, was a joke. Jackson agrees. ‘I used to watch all the fantasy films. Things like Krull and Conan … Fantasy was one of those B-grade genres. No quality movies were ever made in the fantasy genre. Right from the outset The Lord of the Rings was always something different. You can’t think of Krull and The Lord of the Rings in the same sentence. While it was fantasy, in our minds it was always something quite different to that.’

And that was when they had put in the call to Kamins to find out who had the rights, and made their approach to Harvey. And even then things only grew more complicated.

The possibility of adapting Tolkien was soon to be one of three potential fantasy projects for Jackson.

For all of Harvey’s confidence in calling in a favour with Zaentz, it would take eight perilous months of negotiation for a deal to be struck. Zaentz had held the rights tight to his chest for three decades; whatever Harvey had done for him on The English Patient he wasn’t going to part with them lightly. Tribes of rival lawyers were making proposal and counterproposal, putting in calls, arranging meetings, filing memos, coming up with offers, rebuffing counteroffers, and charging by the hour. And Harvey showed zero inclination toward allowing Zaentz any active participation in his project.

Another problem was the weird, bifurcated rights situation surrounding The Hobbit. Harvey had endeavoured to go direct to MGM, which had purchased the crippled UA in the wake of Heaven’s Gate. Ironically, MGM was itself a studio in decline and in one of its many cycles of bankruptcy, reorganization and sale, nobody was about to give away one of its chief assets — even if they were only partial rights to The Hobbit.