Twenty-First-Century Tolkien by Nick Groom

Author:Nick Groom
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atlantic Books

How Many Rings?

While the Tolkien industry did not go exactly into hibernation after the BBC radio dramatization – there was a Russian TV film of The Hobbit in 1985, and a distinctive Finnish TV mini-series of The Lord of the Rings broadcast in 1993, and more History of Middle-earth volumes appeared regularly off the press – the next major international event was not until 2001 with the release of Peter Jackson’s pioneering film The Fellowship of the Ring.

Jackson was not an obvious choice to remake The Lord of the Rings. He was best known for cult splatter movies such as Bad Taste (1987) as well as the more rarefied Heavenly Creatures (1995).105 In any case, it appears that he had only read the book once when he was seventeen.106 However, he had been inspired to do so by the Bakshi film; furthermore, he had read it in an edition that had artwork from Bakshi’s film on the cover.107 If nothing else, Bakshi’s unfinished, thwarted movie showed that there was a potentially international cinema market for The Lord of the Rings. Heavenly Creatures had been distributed by Miramax, who had an option on Jackson’s follow-up film, The Frighteners (1996), for which he was spearheading remarkable CGI effects, inspired by Jurassic Park (1993). Jackson had suddenly become a hot property and was being courted to remake Planet of the Apes as well as King Kong – which he duly began scripting before considering a more ambitious project. He approached Saul Zaentz for the Tolkien rights, and pitched The Hobbit and a two-part Lord of the Rings to Miramax. Miramax had coincidentally just financed Zaentz’s The English Patient (1996) which then won nine Oscars, so in 1997 the Saul Zaentz Company accordingly optioned the film rights for The Lord of the Rings to Miramax Films (while retaining the underlying trademark and service mark rights).

Jackson worked with his partner Fran Walsh on one script for two Rings films, to be filmed back-to-back; they were soon joined by playwright Philippa Boyens. Miramax boss, the now-disgraced (and convicted) producer Harvey Weinstein, invested some $12 million in the project, but became concerned at the escalating costs of the projected films and insisted on reining back to one two-hour film adaptation. Jackson would not even consider something that was ‘literally guaranteed to disappoint every single person that has read the book’.108 Weinstein was also trying to meddle with the script and artwork, Jackson comparing his idiotic advice to the grandiose pretensions of a phony mafia don: ‘Look, ya gotta kill one of the Hobbits. One of the Hobbits has to die.’109

Weinstein then demanded a new deal, including his investment back, and royalties and a credit on any future project. He gave Jackson and Walsh four weeks to find new investors, during which time they controlled the rights to The Lord of the Rings. Jackson and Walsh made a thirty-minute film presentation outlining their plans, flew to Los Angeles, and approached PolyGram and New Line Cinema. Famously at their

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