Ouch… that has to hurt. First there was a major dispute between Wingnut films and New Line Cinema over the amount Jackson was underpaid for J. R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, including DVD payments. The exact figure that he felt he was shafted for hasn’t been named, but rumors are it’s as high as $100 million. Rightfully so, he is reportedly suing New Line for amends… but this obviously had something to do with their finding a different director for the new projects.

On theonering website Jackson and partner Fran Walsh report that an executive from New Line Cinema had called to tell them the studio was moving ahead with the two films without him. New Line Cinema holds the rights to produce The Hobbit and Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer has the rights to distribute it, so there’s not much the guy can do about it… although you can sign a petition on the website to let your opinion be heard. For all it’s worth, anyway.

Jackson must be totally bummed after bringing Tolkien's Middle-earth saga to the screen in a series of three very successful films, winning a best-director Oscar for 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The trilogy also includes 2002's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and 2001's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (our personal favorite).

Jackson was also to make a $128 million movie version of the sci-fi video game Halo but that was also scrapped this month, after backers 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures pulled out. Someone bake this guy some cookies or something… it’s been a bad month! But we know that one of the coolest directors of all-time won't let this get him down. In fact, we hope he goes straight to work on a Meet The Feebles sequel!