Peter Jackson Compares New Gollum Movie to Joaquin Phoenix’s ‘Joker’

Peter Jackson says his long-delayed “The Adventures of Tintin” sequel is finally underway, revealing at Cannes that he is actively writing the screenplay with Fran Walsh while also comparing Andy Serkis’ upcoming “The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum” to Todd Phillips’ “Joker.”

After a decade spent focusing on documentaries and film technology, Peter Jackson is preparing to return to feature filmmaking. First as producer on Andy Serkis’s 2027 film “The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,” then with his sequel to Steven Spielberg’s 2011 hit “The Adventures of Tintin,” which would mark Jackson’s first directing effort since 2015’s “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.” In an interview with IndieWire at the Cannes Film Festival, Jackson described his “Tintin” project as “an active real thing,” and said he was delighted to be back in the mid-century world of Hergé’s adventuresome reporter.

“Literally, I’m in the hotel room down the road writing the script and sending pages to New Zealand,” he said. “I haven’t written anything in the last two days because I’ve been busy, but tomorrow I’ll get back to the draft and do some more pages. Fran [Walsh] and I are writing the script, and we’ll get a draft done, which we’ll send to Steven. He will read it, and he might say that he doesn’t like it, and maybe we should do different books,” Jackson said, pausing. “I don’t think he will. I think he’ll have notes for sure, but we’ll go backwards and forwards until we have a script that we like. At that point we’ll let everyone know what the books are. All I’ll say now is that it begins — it’s not the way that it carries on — but it begins exactly where the last film ends.”

For “The Hunt for Gollum,” to tell the story of one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s most enduring and complex characters, Jackson said he and Walsh found inspiration from an unlikely source. “We were thinking about the original ‘Joker’ film, the one with Joaquin Phoenix,” Jackson said. “The way that explored the Joker’s psychology while it was telling a story. We’ve got the story that’s in the appendices, and we’ll tell that story, but we’ll tell it from an internal Gollum perspective. You’re taking written things by Tolkien and filming them from a certain POV, and that means you have to get inside his head. I’ve got no particular desire to get inside Gollum’s head,” he said, laughing. “Andy Serkis can do that himself.”

While he and Spielberg are sticking to their original agreement to swap producer and director roles on the “Tintin” sequel, Jackson said he is happy to take a step back on “The Hunt for Gollum.” Serkis’ film bridges Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy and “The Lord of the Rings,” following Gollum and his relationship with the Ring.

“We’re legally allowed to adapt anything from The Lord of the Rings books,” the 64-year-old director said. “Now, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ has got these big appendices at the end. Fifty or 60 pages of Tolkien’s notes, background on characters and stuff that’s not in the actual novel but is tacked on at the end. Little side stories, embellishments, enlargements — and part of ‘The Hunt for Gollum’ is described in that. Gollum’s childhood and how he became what he was. Him trying to get to the Shire, and the Rangers tracking him down. He ends up being captured and taken to Mordor — it’s all in the appendices.”

Pressed on whether he thought he should direct “The Hunt for Gollum” himself, Jackson reaffirmed his faith in the “Animal Farm” director.

“I thought the film would be more interesting if Andy did it,” he said. “I honestly, truly believe that if it’s a film about Gollum’s addiction and internal struggles, Andy would make a much more interesting film than me. If I thought I’d do a better film, I’d do it. But I thought, there’s a guy that’s going to make a really interesting film here and it’s not me.”

Jackson’s comments echo those he made when he announced Guillermo del Toro would direct “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” and its sequel in 2008, only to take over months into the project when, as he told a Cannes audience earlier that day, “Warners, for whatever reason, were not greenlighting the film.”

When asked about his own relationship with studios, Jackson said the film industry has changed dramatically from the deal he struck with New Line Cinema to make his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

“If you go back 20 years, there were maybe seven studios financing films, plus a lot of wealthy independents,” Jackson said. “If those studios made 15 films a year, you had more than 100 films being made, plus another 50 independent films. Now you’re going to end up with maybe three studios. Even if they each make 20 films a year, that’s still only 60 films. Technically, there are 60 filmmakers who would have been able to make a film 20 years ago who now aren’t going to get that opportunity. How can that be a good thing?”

Jackson also lamented the decline of physical media, arguing that the collapse of the home video market had led to the disappearance of extended cuts and behind-the-scenes documentaries that continue to serve as reference and inspiration to younger filmmakers.

“You can get Blu-rays and DVDs, but they’re almost a niche product for aficionados now,” Jackson said. “Since they only sell small numbers, no studio wants to put extended features on them or to extend the cuts. We did hours and hours of behind-the-scenes material for ‘The Lord of the Rings’ DVDs, and so many people have thanked me for doing them. People would watch that stuff over and over again because it inspired them to make films. That’s all gone now, and I think it’s a real shame. But the industry has always changed. When sound came in, people were writing all these articles about how sound is ruining films. It was the same when color came along. People were writing very intelligent articles about why color was an abomination and how it ruined the film industry. So, it just happens all the time.”

Since making those DVD extras, in which Jackson lavishes attention on the work of his collaborators, he has had far more experience shepherding other filmmakers’ projects. In 2018, he wrote and produced Christian Rivers’ “Mortal Engines,” and, in 2024, he produced Kenji Kamiyama’s animated film “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.” For “The Hunt for Gollum,” Jackson said he sees himself as more of an executive producer.

“We’ve got producers who are actually making the film. I’m just there as a friend and to give everyone a bit of comfort, to use my experience and to help get it made,” he said. “I don’t do anything unless I get asked. I don’t ever go into work and say, ‘Andy, you should do this, you should do that.’ I want to let him make his film, but if Andy calls me up and says, ‘Can I come around to the house and have a chat with you?’ Then I sit and talk with him. So I’m sort of the godparent who’s available when and as required.”