Sir Peter Robert Jackson ONZ KNZM (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand film director, screenwriter and producer.
He is best known as the director, writer and producer of the [[Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003) and the Hobbit trilogy (2012–2014), both of which are adapted from the novels of the same name by J. R. R. Tolkien. Other notable films include the critically lauded drama Heavenly Creatures (1994), the horror comedy The Frighteners (1996), the epic monster remake film King Kong (2005), the World War I documentary film They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) and the documentary The Beatles: Get Back (2021). He is the fourth-highest-grossing film director of all-time, his films having made over $6.5 billion worldwide. He is also the producer of the 2011 film, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.
Jackson began his career with the "splatstick" horror comedy Bad Taste (1987) and the black comedy Meet the Feebles (1989) before filming the zombie comedy Braindead (1992). He shared a nomination for Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay with his partner Fran Walsh for Heavenly Creatures, which brought him to mainstream prominence in the film industry. Jackson has been awarded three Academy Awards for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. His other awards include three BAFTAs, a Golden Globe, two Primetime Emmy Awards and four Saturn Awards among others.
His production company is WingNut Films, and his most regular collaborators are co-writers and producers Walsh and Philippa Boyens. Jackson was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2002. He was later knighted (as a Knight Companion of the order) by Sir Anand Satyanand, the Governor-General of New Zealand, at a ceremony in Wellington in April 2010. In December 2014, Jackson was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Jackson was born on 31 October 1961 in Wellington and was raised in its far northern suburb of Pukerua Bay. His parents – Joan (née Ruck), a factory worker and housewife, and William "Bill" Jackson, a wages clerk – were immigrants from England.
As a child, Jackson was a keen film fan, growing up on Ray Harryhausen films, as well as finding inspiration in the television series Thunderbirds and Monty Python's Flying Circus. After a family friend gave the Jacksons a Super 8 cine-camera with Peter in mind, he began making short films with his friends. Jackson has long cited King Kong as his favourite film, and around the age of nine he attempted to remake it using his own stop-motion models.
Also, as a child Jackson made a World War II epic called The Dwarf Patrol seen on the Bad Taste bonus disc, which featured his first special effect of poking pinholes in the film for gun shots, and a James Bond spoof named Coldfinger. Most notable though was a 20-minute short called The Valley, which won him a special prize because of the shots he used.
Education[]
Jackson attended Kāpiti College, where he expressed no interest in sports. His classmates also remember him wearing a duffel coat with "an obsession verging on religious". He had no formal training in film-making, but learned about editing, special effects and make-up largely through his own trial and error. As a young adult, Jackson discovered the work of author J. R. R. Tolkien after watching The Lord of the Rings (1978), an animated film by Ralph Bakshi that was a part-adaptation of Tolkien's fantasy trilogy. When he was 16 years old, Jackson left school and began working full-time as a photo-engraver for a Wellington newspaper, The Evening Post. For the seven years he worked there, Jackson lived at home with his parents so he could save as much money as possible to spend on film equipment. After two years of work Jackson bought a 16 mm camera, and began shooting a film that later became Bad Taste.
Career[]
Jackson in 2011
Jackson was one of three producers on The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, directed by Steven Spielberg and released in 2011. He is officially credited as producer but before he began working on The Hobbit, helped Steven Spielberg direct the film. Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis were cast due to their collaboration with Jackson on King Kong and The Lord of the Rings. Spielberg chose to work with Jackson due to his work on the Lord of the Rings series, and knew Jackson's company Weta Digital would make his vision a reality. It received positive reviews and grossed $374 million at the box office.
In December 2011, Spielberg said that a sequel was planned, but this time he would be in a producing role, with Jackson as director. Kathleen Kennedy said the script might be done by February or March 2012 and motion-captured in summer 2012, so that the movie would be on track to be released by Christmas 2014 or mid-2015. In February 2012, Spielberg said that a story outline for the sequel had been completed. In December 2012, Jackson said that the Tintin schedule was to shoot performance-capture in 2013, aiming for a release in 2015. On 12 March 2013, Spielberg said, "Don't hold me to it, but we're hoping the film will come out around Christmas-time in 2015. We know which books we're making, we can't share that now but we're combining two books which were always intended to be combined by Herge."
In December 2014, Peter Jackson said that the Tintin sequel would be made "at some point soon", although he intended to focus on directing two New Zealand films before that. The following year, Anthony Horowitz, who was hired as the sequel's screenwriter even before the release of the first film, stated that he was no longer working on the sequel, and was unsure if it was still being made. In June 2016, Spielberg confirmed that the sequel was still in development, but Jackson is working on a secret project in the meantime.
Personal life[]
Jackson and his partner, Dame Fran Walsh, a New Zealand screenwriter, film producer, and lyricist, have two children, Billy (born 1995) and Katie (born 1996). Walsh has contributed to all of Jackson's films since 1989, as co-writer since Meet the Feebles, and as producer since The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. She won three Academy Awards in 2003, for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Song, for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. She has received seven Oscar nominations.
Jackson is an avid aviation enthusiast and owns a collection of over 40 airworthy World War I-era warbirds housed at Hood Aerodrome near Masterton, and a Gulfstream G650 in Wellington. Jackson also owns the original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He is also interested in building scale models and owns a company that makes models of World War I aircraft. Wingnut Wings, his model making company, has stopped producing kits as of 2020; however, the future of the company is unknown.
As well as this, Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre presents the Knights of the Sky exhibition, featuring Jackson's own collection of WW1 aircraft and artifacts. This story of aviation in the Great War is brought to life in sets created by the internationally acclaimed talent of WingNut Films and Weta Workshop.
Honors[]
In the 2002 New Year Honors, Jackson was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM), for services to film. In the 2010 New Year Honours, he was promoted to Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (KNZM), also for services to film. The investiture ceremony took place at Premier House in Wellington on 28 April 2010.
In 2006, Jackson received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. His Golden Plate was presented by Awards Council member Steven Spielberg.
In the 2012 Queen's Birthday and Diamond Jubilee Honours, Jackson was awarded New Zealand's highest civilian honour as Additional Member of the Order of New Zealand (ONZ), this for services to New Zealand.
In 2016, Jackson was inducted into the New Zealand Business Hall of Fame.