Peter Jackson Is Most Proud of One Movie, and It's Not Lord of the Rings

For decades and centuries to come, Peter Jackson’s name will be associated with the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. The director’s legacy is tied to this story for good, but that doesn’t mean Jackson hasn’t made any other great movies — in fact, the one film the director is especially proud of has absolutely nothing to do with Tolkien.

If you’re dazed, confused, and unable to summon the vision of Peter Jackson’s other works, especially ones rivaling the trilogy’s greatness, worry not. We felt the same.

Jackson’s Dream Project Was Not LotR

For the record, Peter Jackson did an amazing job with the Lord of the Rings movies, and everyone recognizes that, us included. But for the director himself, it wasn’t Tolkien’s epic fantasy story that he’d always dreamed of adapting for the silver screen: he wanted to reboot his favorite childhood black-and-white movie and did it.

“The first run-in I had with a King Kong remake was when I was 11 years old. <...> But after The Lord of the Rings, Universal came to me and asked, ‘Have you still got any interest in Kong?’ When I’m invited to remake King Kong, I can’t say no. It was a childhood dream on one level, and I also felt that I had something to offer to the legend of Kong,” Jackson explained to DGA.

Jackson Is the Most Proud of His Kong

While LotR was the biggest and most important milestone of the director’s career, he only felt his decades-old dreams come true when he got a chance to remake his favorite childhood movie. Peter Jackson’s 2005 King Kong was an immediate hit and an instant cult-classic, cherished to this day — especially after the recent, eh, reboot.

And for Jackson, King Kong is the one movie he feels the proudest about.

“I saw a bit of my Kong about a year ago, and I actually think the last half-hour—those scenes in New York through the end of the Empire State Building sequence—is probably the piece of filmmaking of which I’m the proudest. <...> It’s a wee bit long, but I’m still very proud of it,” the director shared.

Source: DGA