Peter Jackson knows a thing or two about making Lord of The Rings for the screen. He's the writer-director of, well, too many of the films.

He was asked about his involvement in the new Lord of The Rings TV show coming to Amazon:

“About four, five years ago, they asked if I would be interested in it,” he says. “So I said, ‘Have you got the scripts yet?’ Because I know how hard the scripts were to write for the films, and I didn’t know the people writing their scripts. They said, ‘Oh no, we haven’t got the scripts yet, but as soon as we do, we’ll send you the scripts.’ So I was waiting for the scripts to arrive, and they never did.”

But, there's always two sides to every story. Ask Amazon why Jackson was 'ghosted' and they'll tell you that on that first date Jackson just went on and on about his cats. It was too much. Oh, and that legally they had to keep the series as distinct as they could from the Warner Bros-owned film series that Jackson helmed. Getting Jackson's input on the show violated the spirit of that. And that's fair enough.

Jackson says he harbours no ill-will and is keen to see the TV show.

The most interesting statement made in the THR article about this is actually about the wishes of the Tolkein estate, which controls the IP.

...sources say author J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate was against having Jackson on board. This shouldn’t be surprising, as the estate had no involvement with his films and Christopher Tolkien has previously slammed the trilogy in the press as “eviscerating” his father’s books, claiming they turned his novels into action movies for young people that lack “beauty and seriousness.”

Statements like that to me just suggest the new series is going to be a bit plodding.

Peter Jackson Says Amazon’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ TV Series Ghosted Him
The Oscar-winning director says Amazon asked him to be involved with its megabudget ‘LOTR’ series — and then cut off contact. Amazon suggests the story isn’t quite so simple.
The Hollywood ReporterJames Hibberd

The queerness of A League of Their Own

There's an interesting interview with Abbi Jacobson (Broad City), who stars in and produced the upcoming Amazon reboot of A League of Their Own, in which she talks about the upcoming series and the strong LGBTQI themes & plots that run throughout the series.

Jacobson:

When the show keeps being referred to [with the descriptor] “queer” before it all the time, it’s not bad, but we’re still in a moment when we are labeling things as a “queer show.” It’s like being called “a female comedian.” It’s sectioned off until it’s just called a show or a comedian.

It seems like a strange thing to try and defend when so much of the first episode of the series is so stridently about establishing the queer bona fides of this new version and its characters. I think it is being discussed as a 'queer show' because it is so overtly about its queerness.

The show debuts this coming Friday and I'll be curious to see what viewers think of the show. It certainly makes some bold choices.

Abbi Jacobson on Reimagining ‘A League of Their Own’ With Late Director Penny Marshall’s Blessing
The ‘Broad City’ breakout on the challenges of adapting the 1992 baseball flick for an evolved audience: “The fear is people will see the poster and think we’re doing a woke version.”
The Hollywood ReporterLesley Goldberg
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Always Be Watching is written each day by Dan Barrett who is cooking up a change to the newsletters. Stay tuned.