After one of the most gruelling productions in the history of cinema, where all three films were shot back to back in the course of years, the films won a total of – Oscars and gained its cast of unknowns and Peter Jackson squarely into the limelight.

Still a stunning set of movies that made swords and sorcerers watchable again, the Lord of The Rings stands as possible the greatest achievement of Jackson’s career so far.

King Kong (2005):

After the phenomenal success of the Lord of The Rings movies, Peter Jackson was able to finally do the project he had wanted to do since the age of nine, a remake of the 1933 classic King Kong.

King Kong the timeless tale of the giant gorilla that is captured and brought to New York as a Broadway show, only to escape and wreak havoc in the city.

Jackson super sized the big monkey story though, making his version twice the length of the depression era original and making it at the time, the most expensive movie of all time.

Bringing a before untapped level of humanity to Kong, played by Andy Serkis of Gollum fame, Peter Jackson’s version of the yarn brought fleshing out to a whole new level, with some scenes in the film being genuinely touching, something the original never approached.

Despite some mixed reviews, the film was a huge success, and featured in quite a few top ten lists for 2005.

Jackson had delivered on the epic front once again and had fully established himself as a household name, something that he will now be using with the release of The Lovely Bones.

The man from Pukerua Bay has come a long way from baking his own prosthetics for Bad Taste in his mother’s oven and is bound to go much further after producing last year’s sci-fi stunner District 9 and still in the process of exploring the world of videogames with his involvement in the Halo game series.

FemaleFirst Cameron Smith

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