With The Lovely Bones finished and ready to roll out to cinemas around the world (it’s already having its Oscar qualifying run in the US), it’s inevitable that attention would turn to what Peter Jackson plans to make next. Of course he’s hard at work on The Hobbit movies, as well as helping Spielberg with post-production on The Adventures Of Tintin and developing a Dambusters remake with director Christian Rivers, but as he’s only producing those, that should leave him time to find a project of his own.
One possibility that has emerged via New Zealand’s Dominion Post is that Jackson is planning to adapt the Philip Reeve sci-fi book series, Mortal Engines. With the books being set in an post-apocalytic steampunk world that would allow Jackson’s imagination to run riot, you can see why Jackson might interested.
The novels take place after a nuclear war has ravaged the Earth, and with few resources left for human to survive on, a system called ‘Municipal Darwinism’ has turned cities into giant moving machines that attempt to consume one another. It’s a world that’s both futuristic and yet almost medieval (as much technology was lost during the wars), with the main plot following Tom Natsworthy and his adventures in the giant ‘traction cities’.
As yet there’s no official word on whether Jackson is actually busy adapting the first of the four books, or indeed if he plans to direct himself. However, the fact that rather than simply denying it his spokesperson said, “any comment should come from Peter”, suggests there’s probably some truth in it.
At the moment the project is likely to be in the very early stages, with Jackson looking into concepts for the film and whether he feels he can turn it into a movie. There have also been some rumours about a Jackson directed Galipolli film, and he’s optioned the historical-fantasy book series Temeraine, although that’s most likely to become a mini-series rather than a movie. Peter’s certainly got a lot of options, and it’ll be interesting to see which one he chooses.