A friend of mine was a movie development guy for a while several years ago. The company he was working for had Jackson all but committed to do a movie based on Frank Luke, the balloon-busting WW1 American ace. Great script, Jackson's all excited. The only hold-up is that he's waiting for one last studio to pass on his LOTR project, once that happens, he's in...
My friend had a deactivated German Maxim machine gun they'd borrowed for presentations under his bed for a couple of months until they had to give it back.