Peter Jackson has had a fulfilling career so far, blessing us with masterpieces like The Lord of the Rings trilogy and many more. Among those is the 1994 psychological drama Heavenly Creatures, which not only stunned the audience with its visual style and storytelling but also captivated them with electrifying lead performances. The empathetic, non-judgmental approach to a tragic true-crime story accounted for an experience never attempted before. So naturally, it was invited to the Cannes Film Festival for its groundbreaking approach.

However, Peter Jackson decided to hold the movie out of the festival, and he has just revealed the reason why.

The iconic filmmaker, who is currently in Cannes for the Cannes Film Festival 2026, getting his Honorary Palme d’Or, recently opened up about the reason he skipped the Cannes Film Festival for Heavenly Creatures while talking to Deadline. It was a strategic decision, one that helped a young Kate Winslet to start her film career.

“Until the film came out, she was nobody. I mean, it was so obvious to all of us that when the movie came out, she was gonna get offers to make films,” the director said about the Titanic actress.

Therefore, the shift in the movie premiere from Cannes to the Venice Film Festival gave the new actress seven months, which the director considered ample time to line up a major new acting honor. However, he also acknowledged that the wait compelled her to go back to making sandwiches in London, as she was a "nobody" till then.

However, his gamble did pay off, and the movie was a huge success at the Venice Film Festival. The movie eventually ended up winning the Silver Lion at the festival, and helped the filmmaker, who also co-wrote the script with his longtime collaborator Fran Walsh, earn his first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. As for Kate Winslet, the movie’s success positioned her from a working-class deli girl to a world-famous actress.

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Jackson also revealed how Stephen Colbert ended up as a writer for the new Lord of the Rings movie.

Peter Jackson, a recent Cannes Palme d'Or honoree, told Deadline that Stephen Colbert was roped in for writing the new Lord of the Rings film, Hunt for Gollum, after The Late Show host expressed his interest in the job. Colbert pitched the idea, and the director thought it to be a potent idea for a new film.

“He was re-reading Lord of the Rings over Christmas and thought this section would make a great film. He pitched this whole idea… I said it sounds interesting, let’s have a go at this, doing a treatment,” Jackson said, explaining how the whole thing went down. 

He further said that the new story is a part of The Lord of the Rings that they never shot. There were several big portions of the source material that they skipped, and that never made it to the big screen. Hunt for Gollum, which releases December 17, 2027, is a part of those portions that never got told. Whether taking his time in adapting a never-before-done Lord of the Rings tale will fare just as well for him as did the Cannes bypass of Heavenly Creatures did for Kate Winslet is yet to be seen. 

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Did you know the reason behind Heavenly Creatures skipping Cannes before? Do let us know.