TheQuartering [8/6/2022]

According to People:

Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson was ghosted — but he’s holding no grudges.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast on Thursday, the Academy Award-winning director, 60, said that the team producing Amazon’s upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, left him hanging after holding initial conversations tied to him getting onboard.

“They asked me if I wanted to be involved — [writer-producer Fran Walsh] and I — and I said, ‘That’s an impossible question to answer without seeing a script,'” Jackson said in the interview.

And though he detailed that the team then promised to send the scripts to Jackson and Walsh as soon as they were done, the filmmaker explained, “The scripts never showed up. That’s the last thing I heard.”

Jackson, who topped the Forbes‘ Highest-Paid Entertainer List of 2022, said he holds no ill will towards the production, however — “No complaints at all,” he said — and he even noted that he’s looking forward to watching the upcoming series.

“I’ll be watching it,” he said. “I’m not the sort of guy who wishes ill will. Filmmaking is hard enough.”

Added Jackson: “If somebody makes a good film or TV show, it’s something to celebrate. The one thing I am looking forward to is actually seeing it as a perfectly neutral viewer.”

Amazon Studios later responded to Jackson’s claims in a statement to THR. “In pursuing the rights for our show, we were obligated to keep the series distinct and separate from the films,” the statement to the outlet reads. “We have the utmost respect for Peter Jackson and The Lord of The Rings films and are thrilled that he is looking forward to watching The Rings of Power.”

A representative for Amazon Studios did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.