How Peter Jackson and his protégé Christian Rivers revved up 'Mortal Engines' for the big screen
LOS ANGELES - In 2015, Peter Jackson was feeling burned out - and you could hardly blame him. The New Zealand director had just finished work on the "Hobbit" films, wrapping up production on his supersized fantasy trilogy in a final sprint of 22-hour days that had left his energy depleted and his brain utterly fried.
For several years, Jackson had been developing another big-budget fantasy film, "Mortal Engines," a post-apocalyptic epic based on a series of young-adult novels by British author Philip Reeve. But as much as he loved the project - set in a future in which mechanized steampunk cities rove a world ravaged by war in search of resources - at that point he just didn't have enough oomph in his own engine to take on another ambitious piece
