Wetawood

Two LA Times features look at the phenomenal success of Peter Jackson’s Miramar-based empire; Weta Digital, Weta Workshop, and the Film Unit. The challenge meeting Jackson’s business is keeping the world-class staff he amassed for the now completed LotR trilogy busy enough to resist the temptation of the US dollar until work begins on Jackson’s King Kong in 2005. The lord rests in a NYT interview, but no break for PJ. The man himself is portrayed in the features as “in many ways …  following in the footsteps of Star Wars creator George Lucas, the only other director to establish his domain outside of Hollywood and have a lasting effect. The development of Jackson’s production power is a reflection of the Hollywood rebel. Friends describe him as focused and fiercely loyal, an iconoclast with a love-hate relationship with Tinseltown.”