Year
of birth: 1961
Place of Birth: Pukera Bay, New Zealand
Occupation: Movie director
Speciality: Horror
Movies: Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003), The Frighteners
(1995), Heavenly Creatures (1994), Braindead (1991).
Biography:
Peter Jackson is the only child of Bill and Joan Jackson.
On Christmas 1969, Peters parents got an 8mm filmcamera. It didnt
take long untill 8-year old Peter laid his hands on the camera...
He started making movies of his own and in 1973, he and a couple
of friends made a 2nd World War-film. After getting a job at The
Evening Post, a Wellington newspaper, he could afford the
purchase of a Bolex 16mm film camera in 1983. Peter started on
a 10 minute short film called "Roast Of The Day".
The 10 minute short film got extended to be a full leangth feature
film.
As Peter was
busily filming on weekends, he was whilst also applying to the
New Zealand Film Commission for money finish one of his movies
properly. 4 years after Peter started making that movie, the alien
/ splatter "Bad Taste" was finished. The New
Zealand Film Commission brought the film to Cannes where the critics
loved it. Bad Taste was sold to 30 countries and Peter Jackson
was known. After that, Jim Booth joined Peter as a partner in
WingNut Films.
Peter had
met Frances Walsh and Stephen Sinclair with whom he started writing
a script, together with another friend of theirs, Danny Mulheron.
It was a script for a puppet film called "Meet the Freebles".
Meet The Feebles was shown on a lot of festivals around the world
and after this, Peter Jackson got a budget to make a zombie movie.
Peter, Fran
and Stephen looked through a zombie movie script they had been
writing on for years and felt they needed to re-write it. So they
did and in 1991, they started making the ultimate splatter/zombie/comedy
"Braindead". It was released worldwide and shown
in theaters in many countries.
After making
some of the bloodiest movies ever, he and Fran made in 1994 the
drama/thriller "Heavenly Creatures". Its based
on a true story, which happened in New Zealand in the 50s and
was a very famous murdercase. Audience and critics loved Heavenly
Creatures and those who werent allready fans of Peter Jackson
or at least enjoyed his work, certainly started doing that now.
In 1995, NZTV
showed a documentary called "Forgotten Silver",
about a filmmaker, The New Zealand pioneer Colin McKenzie. The
documentary was made by Peter Jackson and tells the story about
a man who was one step before all the time, he filmed a man flying
an aeroplane 9 months before the Wright brothers flew, he made
colorfilm a long time ago and he made film with sound. Though
Colin McKenzie was a man with very bad luck so he never made it.
After it was shown, people started wondering, why hadnt they heard
of this Colin McKenzie untill now? The answer is - because he
was all made up.
Later that
year, Bob Zemeckis contacted Peter and asked him to write
a draft for a Tales From The Crypt movie. Peter and Fran wrote
a draft in a couple of weeks that they sent to Bob. Bob read the
draft and liked it so much that he thought it should be more than
a Tales from the Crypt episode, so it became a big budget full
length feature film, "The Frighteners".
Then the rumors
started that Peter Jackson was doing something by J.R.R. Tolkien
into film. Peter was very mysterious and quiet about this though
and it seemed. In late August 1998 Peter announced allover the
world that his next project was LOTR. Filming started in september
1999 and the complete trilogy (three separate movies) were shot
at once, a first-time ever achievement. Movie company New Line
Cinema was willing to invest 240 million USD in this project.
Together with Philippa Boyens and wife Fran Walsh, Jackson rewrote
the book to a commercially successfull movie script. The movie
was filmed with Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee as
some of the main characters. The first movie of the trilogy movie
won 4 Oscars at the 2002 Annual Academy Awards.
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