Peter Jackson Talks Kong Game Sequels, Game-To-Film Hopes

In an interview with Yahoo! Games' 'Hollywood Byte' column, Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson has commented further on both his collaboration with Michel Ancel on Ubisoft' King Kong game, and his further interest and involvement in video games, including his production role on the Halo movie. Of the Ancel collaboration, Jackson commented: "I didn't need to provide too much day-to-day input. I just oversaw from a creative perspective and made sure they captured our core values for what we wanted to accomplish in the game" - a collaboration that made for a critically appreciated title that many felt put film and game directors on an equal footing for one of the first times in licensed game history. Going forward, Ubisoft has the rights to future Kong games, but regarding a possible game sequel, Jackson simply comments: "I have been in discussions with Michel Ancel and the Montpellier team, but there is nothing to share at this point in time." Jackson also has some interesting thoughts on the maturation of the game medium, which he is further involved in through his producer role on Halo, the Bungie/Microsoft game adaptation which is being financed by Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox, suggesting: "It'll be very interesting when a filmmaker creates a video game-based film experience that goes beyond what people thought it could be." He continued: "For example, music videos were originally just musicians playing music while being recorded on video so people could watch them, but now they are elaborate short movies that do everything from interpret the song through the medium of visual art to communicating political statements."