Jackson Confesses: He's No Superhero Comic Fan

By DAVID GERMAIN
AP Movie Writer
SAN DIEGO
Peter Jackson does not expect he’ll ever get into the superhero business.

The filmmaker behind “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and the upcoming prelude “The Hobbit” said superheroes may rule in Hollywood, but he has no interest in doing a comic-book adaptation himself.

In that regard, Jackson’s out of step with Hollywood’s current moneymakers. This summer’s big films so far have been the superhero ensemble “The Avengers” and “The Amazing Spider-Man,” with the Batman finale “The Dark Knight Rises” expected to debut to huge audiences.

Jackson’s a master of action spectacles himself, so he’s not going to knock superhero flicks. He’s in favor of whatever it takes to keep people coming out to the movies at a time when technology has given them endless entertainment options.

And if right now, it’s superhero movies, so be it.

Still, Jackson said he wishes studios would make room for more lower- and mid-budgeted films, the sort of intimate, personal stories that were a Hollywood mainstay before the blockbuster era took hold a few decades ago.

In between his great ape tale “King Kong” and “The Hobbit,” Jackson directed just such a smaller film with 2009’s “The Lovely Bones,” an afterlife drama centered on a murdered girl.

But Jackson said “all the really great independent cinema has gone to TV now,” with such sharp, brave dramas as “Breaking Bad.”

Jackson wants to do something smaller again himself at some point, though he’s booked for a few years with “The Hobbit” and a sequel to last year’s “The Adventures of Tintin.”

Steven Spielberg directed “Tintin,” with Jackson producing the action tale based on Belgian writer Herge’s stories of a globe-trotting young reporter. The film was created through motion-capture, with live actors providing a digital foundation for characters that were layered over with computer animation to make the finished product.

The filmmakers plan to switch roles on the next one, with Jackson directing a follow-up that he said will move Tintin “to a slightly different genre, a slightly less of a rollicking adventure and something a bit more, a little bit more of a sort of espionage type of story. So it’s a slight tone shift, which I think will be good.”

Jackson said he hopes to spend five or six weeks next year doing the motion-capture shoot, while he’s finishing part two of “The Hobbit.” The first “Hobbit” film hits theaters this December, with the second following a year later.

Spielberg and Jackson have not decided what to do with “Tintin” after the second movie.