Working with Tolkien estate would have been suffocating, says director Dome Karukoski

Director Dome Karukoski says it would have been "suffocating" for him if he had worked on "Tolkien", a biopic on the iconic author of "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" series, in consultation with the writer's estate.

The film, which features actor Nicholas Hoult as the eponymous character, has been in news of late after the JRR Tolkien's family and the Tolkien estate had raised their objections and said they do "not endorse" the biopic which is set to be released next month.

According to IndieWire, at a recent post-screening Q&A in New York City, Karukoski said that not having discussions with the Tolkien estate about the film helped him maintaining an unbiased approach to the story.

"Honestly, you try not to work with the estate for reasons obvious. Even if it would be out of kindness to ask the estate, you start servicing them, they become your friends. You shouldn't mess with the estate, so the film can exist purely for your own reasons and your own feelings about the characters," the director said.

"We did very, very thorough research, we understand these characters, and the emotional truth of them is very true. To dig out the emotional truth of the characters, you have to try to not hide certain evidence and when you work with an estate what happens is that that kind of gets suffocated. You're not allowed to do certain things so that the audience can feel an emotion from it," he added.

Karukoski said that he offered to screen the film for the Tolkien estate before its London premiere, but they declined.

"I actually approached them to offer them a chance to watch the film with me and Nick and I hope that will happen one day," he added.

The biopic, which also features Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, Derek Jacobi, Mimi Keene and Pam Ferris, is due to land on May 10, more than 46 years after Tolkien's death.