Peter Jackson

"With the Lord of the Rings, Peter jackson established himself as the natural successor to fantasy film-makers Steven Spielberg and George Lucas - and all without leaving his native New Zealand." - Ronald Bergan (Eyewitness Companions: Film, 2006)
Peter Jackson
Director / Screenwriter / Producer
(1961- ) Born October 31, Pukerua Bay, North Island, New Zealand
Top 250 Directors / 21st Century's Top 100 Directors

Key Production Countries: New Zealand, USA
Key Genres: Epic, Fantasy Adventure, Sword-and-Sorcery, Horror Comedy, Horror, Fantasy, Comedy
Key Collaborators: Fran Walsh (Screenwriter/Producer), Jamie Selkirk (Editor), Grant Major (Production Designer), Philippa Boyens (Screenwriter), Andrew Lesnie (Cinematographer), Elijah Wood (Leading Actor), Ian McKellen (Leading Actor), Liv Tyler (Leading Actress), Stephen Sinclair (Screenwriter), Barrie M. Osborne (Producer), Jim Booth (Producer), Jabez Olssen (Editor)

"Jackson's career had moved full circle by the 1990s: he had shifted from making low-budget, cult New Zealand movies to crafting high-budget, cult New Zealand movies. Not only are his latter day films in much better taste than his earlier bad taste outings, but by adapting Tolkien's cult novels, and remaking a Hollywood cult movie of the 1930s, Jackson has cleverly guaranteed that he can conform to the mainstream, yet can still maintain a loyal cult following." - Matt Hills (501 Movie Directors)
"Anarchic New Zealand-born director who has made a virtue of the title of his first film - Bad Taste. A few years earlier his films might have been condemned in a body as video nasties - but festival and critical approval has brought recognition and (almost) respectability to Jackson's charnel-house work, a world in which slicing someone's head off with a meat cleaver represents a tame demise... Lord knows where Jackson goes from here, but it's going to be an exciting ride." - David Quinlan (Quinlan's Film Directors, 1999)
Heavenly Creatures
Heavenly Creatures (1994)
"The visionary epic style of the Tolkien films (if you can trust the first part) was forged originally in the gleeful manufacture of low-budget gore movies. And nothing stands between the two extremes of anti-respectability and who knows how many Oscars but the astonishing Heavenly Creatures, the giddiest teenage murder spree in the movies and one of the most rapturous portraits of adolescent pathology. The Rings trilogy may not be our Wagner. Nevertheless, it may be the end to old-fashioned theatrical movie-going. Or a new beginning? The eleven Oscars for the film equaled the record, and included the Oscar for direction. So, we are all New Zealanders now, but will Jackson ever regain the smack and shock of Heavenly Creatures?" - David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2010)
"Jackson's achievement in staying put at home and persuading the Hollywood money to come to him bodes well for his country's film industry. Most successful New Zealand directors have used their first major hit as a springboard for Hollywood. Jackson, remaining true to his roots, has set up his own production base (Wingnut Films) in his home town of Wellington. "I choose to stay in New Zealand earning a fraction of what I could make in Los Angeles because I want to do whatever I feel like doing...The freedom that I have in New Zealand is worth millions of dollars to me." - Philip Kemp (Film Reference)
"An enthusiastic amateur film-maker as a child, he gradually refined his efforts and eventually made his feature debut with the low-budget splatter film Bad Taste (1987). Initially regarded mainly as a director of gory horror films, he won a different level of recognition and acclaim for his work on the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films." - Chambers Film Factfinder, 2006
"People always said, 'How can your imagination compete with the [LOTR] books; how can you put things on the screen that are going to be better than what people have in their minds?' I understood the rationale behind that. [But] I started to believe it was possible when I saw Alan Lee [conceptual artist] produce sketches for me that were so much better than what was in my mind. I knew then that it was possible to show things on-screen beyond what people imagined." - Peter Jackson
Selected Filmography
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GF Greatest Films ranking ( Top 1000 ● Top 2500)
21C 21st Century ranking ( Top 1000)
T TSPDT
Peter Jackson / Favourite Films
Dawn of the Dead (1978) George A. Romero, The General (1926) Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, GoodFellas (1990) Martin Scorsese, Jaws (1975) Steven Spielberg, King Kong (1933) Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes (2009)
Peter Jackson / Fan Club
Richard Corliss, Collin Souter, Patrick Laurent, Rob Vaux, Marshall Fine, Michael Sragow, Euan Franklin, Mary McNamara, John H. Foote, Jonathan Lack, Roque Baños, Douglas Pratt.
Braindead