Peter Jackson, LOTR actors not feeling the love (second item on page)

Hollywood is a fantasyland, especially when it comes to economics. “Forrest Gump” was a colossal success until author Winston Groome demanded his share of the profits, as was previously agreed, at which point he was informed that Gump had not turned a profit. I also remember a news announcement in the latter half of the 1990s that the film “Hook,” which had to pay percentages to Spielberg, Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams, had at last broken even.

Now it looks like New Line Cinemas made billions and billions off of Lord of the Rings but didn’t see fit to pass enough of the rewards on to the actors:

I can now tell you that, Jackson’s problems aside, I have heard nothing but grumbling about money from various actors in the series for the past three years.

…

The low rumble of dissatisfaction began after the first movie, “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” turned out to be a blockbuster.

If you recall, Jackson — who shot principal photography for all three movies simultaneously — went right back into post-production after the 2002 Academy Awards to get the second film ready for a December 2002 release.

But he knew he needed the actors back in New Zealand to fix things, reshoot some scenes, etc.

Unfortunately, New Line didn’t want to pay the actors more money for the additional work — even though it was happy to fly them all back to New Zealand and underwrite the travel expense.

… At one point I was told that Sean Astin, who played Sam Gamgee the Hobbit, “was close to losing his house” because New Line had not ponied up the remaining fees.