People seem to think he's fucking great because of LotR. I liked them, and think that he probably did a better job then a lot of people would, but given the source material, the budget, and the talent he had to work with, it would have been somewhat hard to fuck it up.
"The Hobbit without Peter Jackson will bomb!" maybe one of the stupidest statements I've come across.
I didn't like any of the LOTR movies basically because of the LOTR universe. However I think you are being very harsh, especially since you seemed to have liked his movies. The fact is that he got three out of three right, what more do you want?
And honestly, people have fucked up with a lot better ingredients.
A prequel to the Star Wars trilogy with Liam Nesson, Ewan McGregor etc. How
could you fuck that up? While I enjoyed the second Star Wars trilogy, it was pretty soulless. Aside from that there are tons of movies out there that got fucked up despite having the perfect ingredients.
My point is if you like the movies, give the guy some credit.
The reason
I didn't like the LOTR movies was because I found them boring. I am a massive fantasy fan, but couldn't really get into the movies, and found the trailers far more interesting.
I think my issue was really the lack of magic in the Tolkien universe. Gandalf seemed very powerless and there weren't any epic magic battles in the first two movies -- the ones I watched. The other issue was the orcs. The orcs basically looked like extras running around with half stitched head pieces on. I don't remember them looking like how Tolkein wanted. The siege laid by the orcs looked pretty fake. It basically looked like a gazillion extras and not like orcs.
Anyway I am going to rent the trilogy and watch it again.
As for King Kong, I have to say I loved it. It did get a bit too long, but it was pretty good.
edit:
Again I've only seen the first two, but I wanted to say something in defense of the changes in the movie. A lot of fanboys were upset with the modifications, but I think they were necessary to make the movie interesting.