Next time you’re facing incredible odds, and are tempted to give up the pursuit of your dream because it seems hopeless, think about the challenge faced by movie director Peter Jackson.
We know how successful The Lord of the Rings trilogy was, and it’s hard to look back and understand the sheer impossibility of the task faced by this man when he first set out to bring the much-loved books to the big screen.
Peter Jackson’s obscurity at the time makes this story even more incredible. A relative unknown, working from his base in a country with no significant history of movie making, he delivered three highly successful films all at once! The story behind Lord of the Rings is one of the great personal triumphs of our time.
Way back when
Peter Jackson was gearing up for his first attempt at directing King Kong, when the studio pulled the plug. It’s not hard to see why. His previous effort for the studio was The Frighteners, and this didn’t do well at the box office.
At the same time, two other monster movies (Mighty Joe Young and Godzilla) had just flopped. From the studio’s perspective, it must have been seen as too much of a gamble to bet on an unknown director making films in a foreign country nobody had heard of.
Jackson must have been crushed. He had been a huge fan of King King since the age of 12, and can only have been devastated to see the project stall. Despite this setback, it’s characteristic of the man that he picked himself up and carried on.
He turned his attention to an even more difficult project. He wanted to secure the rights to The Lord of the Rings, and turn it into a movie.
Somehow, he got the green light from a major Hollywood studio. Unfortunately, they soon backed out of the project. Once again, the thought of trusting a relative unknown with such a sizable sum of money proved too big a gamble.
King King had been rejected, and now his next attempt to make a movie in New Zealand was similarly rebuffed. Most people, faced with two major setbacks in a row, would simply have given up.
Peter Jackson is not most people. He picked himself up, dusted himself off, and started looking for yet another studio.
With the benefit of hindsight, you and I know the studio had nothing to worry about. But there was absolutely no indication this was the case back then.
Fortunately, the decision maker’s at New Line Cinema agreed to commit $270 million to make three fantasy films. Even Peter Jackson admits that “fantasy films in Hollywood have seldom been a successful genre.”
Many people have called it “Hollywood’s biggest gamble.” Jackson commented that “It was like old Hollywood…almost gambling the studio on a film.” What’s more, Jackson decided to film all three films simultaneously. The meant it would be impossible for New Line to cancel filming of the sequels if the first film flopped.
This was a big risk. New Line’s foresight is to be credited, as is Jackson’s ability to infuse his own enthusiasm for a project in others. This ability is a crucial part of his success.
Movie executives are trusted with millions of dollars, and are expected to show a profit on the money they invest in films. That’s why big-budget movies are almost always conservative projects. The Lord of the Rings trilogy was not a conservative project.
Yet somehow, Peter Jackson was able to get New Line’s executives to share his vision and his passion for the project. The only reason they committed such a vast sum to the project, is that Jackson was able to infect others with the same enthusiasm and passion as he himself had for the project.
Imagine how you’d feel if you’d just handed over a large percentage of your capital to some unknown person from god-knows-where! Especially once he’s left the country, and taken your money to the other side of the world!
There must have been plenty of people who, upon meeting Peter Jackson and listening to his vision for The Lord of the Rings, sat back and ask themselves ‘who does this man think he is?’
Who does Peter Jackson think he is?
In my opinion, the key to Peter Jackson’s greatness is his self-belief. I’m certain he has doubts about his own ability, every bit as much as you and I do. In fact, he’s admitted as much in interviews.
The only difference between so-called “ordinary” people, and Peter Jackson, is he doesn’t let his self-doubt determine the actions he takes in life. He doesn’t relate to his self-doubt as if it’s gospel truth.
Jackson simply gets on with the task at hand. He lets his overriding goal determine the things he does. And this project was overwhelming. There was so much to do, it must have been almost impossible to know where to start.
Remember, at this point in his career Jackson had never been involved in anything like this. The man never even went to film school!
He followed the advice of his father, who is an advocate for ignoring the enormity of a project, and instead focusing on one job at a time. Peter Jackson took that philosophy to heart, and applied it to the immense task of making these three movies.
The trilogy took eight years to complete, from obtaining the film rights through finishing the third movie. Preparation alone consumed three years, from writing scripts, designing sets, casting the actors, and finding the right locations.
Eight years is a long time to spend on a single project, and this is another key to understanding Jackson’s success.
He chose his goal and stuck with it
Most people don’t stick with a project long enough to be successful. Generally, a series of seemingly insurmountable problems crop up, and the project is abandoned.
Not so for Jackson. Even a major problem, such as losing studio support, was unable to shake him for long. He picked himself up, and secured an even better deal!
This long-term dedication to his goals can be seen in Jackson’s next project: King Kong. Despite the bitter blow he must have felt when the project was canceled in 1997, it was never abandoned.
Jackson is now in a very strong position. What studio would refuse the opportunity of working with him? Unsurprisingly, King Kong was delivered in December 2005 and is a box-office success.
More importantly, thanks to his success with the Rings trilogy, Jackson was able to secure a suitably large budget for his pet project.
He does what he loves and he loves what he does
Another of the keys to understanding Jackson’s success is that he loves what he does. His work is his hobby. He would make films no matter what. He’d been doing so long before anyone had heard of him, even in his native New Zealand. I suspect that, even if he was unable to get anyone to invest in another of his projects, he’d still make movies. Just for the fun of it.
This is a man who spends his days doing what he loves. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure there are plenty of day-to-day tasks that aren’t fun for Jackson.
The point is, it’s those boring day-to-day tasks that deliver movies to the screen. As hard as it must be to carry on, at times, Jackson is interested in the outcome of his efforts. From his perspective, the mundane tasks are the stuff that have to be done to achieve his ultimate goal.
When asked if he was sick and tired of The Lord of the Rings, he said “I love what I’m doing. I haven’t woken up one morning in the last six or seven years wishing I was doing anything else other than The Lord of the Rings. I mean, it’s an honor. I know it sounds corny, but as a filmmaker what more amazing project could you work on? It’s one of the great stories. It’s fun.”
He’s not lucky
In one sense, Peter Jackson is lucky. He’s even said so himself. It is a privilege to be trusted with such a large sum of money, and I’m certain he felt like a very lucky man during the Oscars in 2004!
It’s always tempting to ascribe this level of success to mere chance. To imagine that successful people, like Peter Jackson, are somehow luckier than the rest of us.
It’s not luck. Jackson wasn’t sitting around at home watching television when a Hollywood executive called him up and offered him $270 million to make a movie trilogy. The whole concept of luck is a cop out. If he had been sitting around all day watching television, he wouldn’t have made anything — let alone a $270 million trilogy of blockbuster movies.
Peter Jackson does the things a person would do if he or she wanted to make a major Hollywood blockbuster. That is, he makes movies.
In the days when he had no chance of securing money from anyone, he worked a day job and poured his own money into making movies with friends.
His first movie took 4 years to make. He took it to the Cairns Film Festival, won some acclaim, and secured funding to make his next movie. He slowly built his reputation, step-by-step over the years, until his skill allowed him to make Heavenly Creatures. It was this film that made him credible in Hollywood.
My point is, Jackson wasn’t lucky. He was dedicated.
He learned his craft, pursuing his passion in his spare time until he was able to do it full-time. He continued to improve, surrounding himself with a team of people who were able to deliver the many technical components that make a movie.
There is no such thing as luck. There is simply the time you have available to you, and what you do with it. As Galdalf says in The fellowship of the Ring, “All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.”
And Peter Jackson used his time wisely.
Desire delivers results
I’m a big fan of Peter Jackson. I love the way he lives life on his own terms, without alienating himself from the world he lives in. His success is a natural by-product of his love for film. It’s the desire to produce movies that has this man do the things that are necessary for him to be successful.
Anytime he feels let down, or angry, or disappointed, or that it’s no longer worth the effort, he need only fall back on his larger goal.
He wants to make movies. And that’s the only thing he wants to do. Everything else is simply an activity required to make a movie. And when you get right down to it, that’s the true secret of success.
