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The One Ring Forums:
Tolkien Topics: Movie Discussion: The Lord of The Rings:
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Chen G.
Mithlond
Feb 17, 2:27pm
Views: 592
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You can't convince me that the decision to make a short book into three long movies was made on artistic rather than commercial grounds.
It was. There's not the merest suggestion from anyone involved that the decision was made by anyone other than Jackson. Both himself, Boyens, the lead actors (who were appraised to this early) and even one of the executives - all say that the decision was Peter's.
What's more, it's not the case that they set out to turn the novel into a trilogy: they shot it as two films. The decision to turn into a trilogy was made towards the end of the shoot, at a point where they realized they simply scripted and shot too much material for two films.
As can be easily demonstrated, the trilogy was indeed created editorially: almost everything you see it in was going to be in the two-film version. Essentially we got three 160-minute films in place of two 210-minute films.
The writing was very much on the wall for a long time: Early on, Guillermo del Toro said it "really is barely containable into two movies." Mike Mignola, whom del Toro later invited to pitch in on the movie, said: "wow, it looks like a 16 hour, insane movie, there's so much in it. It's too early for me to tell how much stuff is going to get paired down." He estimated it would take 370 days to shoot!
Then, when Peter took over and they did a schedule, he was taken aback to find that what they scripted would take 250 days to shoot: not far off of the 274 days principal photography on The Lord of the Rings ultimately took. Throughout the production, actors constantly joked that scene 88, to name just one example, could constitute a third film.
Whatever failings one attributes to the films, they are Peter's choices alltogether. When you're the director of The Lord of the Rings, you don't get bossed around by studio executives, and least of all by somebody like Toby Emmerich, who worked with Peter on Rings and was generally very sympathetic. Soon after The Hobbit, Peter chose to bring his WWI documentary to Emmerich.
(This post was edited by Chen G. on Feb 17, 2:29pm)
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Edit Log:
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Post edited by Chen G.
(Mithlond) on Feb 17, 2:28pm
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Post edited by Chen G.
(Mithlond) on Feb 17, 2:28pm
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Post edited by Chen G.
(Mithlond) on Feb 17, 2:29pm
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