On the portal Polygon appeared material about an early version of the film adaptation of “The Lord of the Rings” by Peter Jackson, which could have consisted of two films.
It all started after work on Celestial Creatures , when Jackson and Fran Walsh struck a deal with Harvey Weinstein and began working on Scarecrow for Universal . Jackson later said that he regretted his decision, but the agreements had already been signed.
For the sake of Scarecrow, he had to make concessions to Weinstein, who was then working at Miramax – the producer believed that by temporarily letting the director go to Universal, he had done him “a great service.”
In the process of creating a new tape, Jackson and Walsh began working on their fantasy, but constantly returned to Tolkien’s material .
As a result, Jackson asked Weinstein to find out who owned the rights to “The Lord of the Rings”, which the producer did. The latter went on to tell the director that they would create three films – “The Hobbit” and two tapes based on “The Lord of the Rings”, thereby providing hundreds of jobs in the WETA special effects studio .
Weinstein had a hard time knocking out the rights to the material from producer Sol Zaenz , with whom they had previously worked on The English Patient , after parting not under the most pleasant circumstances. One of the difficulties was the attempt to exclude Zaenz from the production of future paintings.
In parallel, Universal, pleased with “Scarecrows”, began to offer Jackson a remake of King Kong , which he had long dreamed of. Even 20th Century Fox beckoned the author with its reboot of Planet of the Apes . But in the end, the director chose Kong.
In response, Weinstein went berserk with a clever deal that made him one of the film’s producers and, somehow, the owner of the script for Shakespeare in Love . But Universal managed to get hold of Jackson again, although the latter promised Harvey to tackle The Lord of the Rings right after Kong.
And then “The Scarecrows” failed at the box office. Universal in response to this instantly hacked to death “Kong” and closed all the developments on the project.
By this point, Jackson’s firm was busy producing the film, and they were simply “pulled” out of the process. As a result, the director had no choice – he returned to Weinstein, taking up The Lord of the Rings.
Initially, Jackson and Walsh tried to adapt the material in two films, mostly due to lack of choice. Weinstein was willing to spend only $ 75 million, and on both paintings together.
Later, playwright from New Zealand Stephen Sinclair joined the production , with the help of which the authors created two scenarios – “The Fellowship of the Ring” and “War of the Ring” . The whole process took about 18 months, and in the end everyone agreed on one idea – they would never want to make these films with Harvey Weinstein.
Harvey and his brother Bob did not understand the original material and did not really believe in its success, considering it all only as a new project for Jackson, which could bring them money. In addition, they did not tell the author that the amount of 75 million appeared due to their agreement with Disney – the producers could not make a film for a lot of money.
As one of the methods of “escape” from the producer, the authors chose to “drain” the scripts in order to interest other studios.
Then the documents fell into the hands of the author of the original essay Polygon Drew McVeeney , who at that time worked on the site Ain’t It Cool – Jackson had connections with this portal. The drain was organized in such a way that later all participants could leave without severe consequences. No one named sources, and the site was not asked to hide information.
According to McVeeney, the texts already contained the main points and themes of the trilogy (the importance of Sam in the plot, etc.), but the general feeling when reading was as if the story is being told at a speed of one and a half. The plot did not have time for moments of calm, and the development of the characters was often lost for the sake of time. In particular, this concerned Gollum .
Some ideas existed in an early form — Frodo had originally read the introduction to the story , not Galadriel . And the first of the two films ended after Sam, Frodo and Gollum met with the Nazgul . In addition, there were many songs and road ballads in the early versions.
In the end, Weinstein set a condition for the authors, which they refused to fulfill – to release one film instead of two with a timing of four hours.
After the refusal, Jackson was offered to find finances somewhere else, but on the condition that Weinstein will receive all the bonuses due to him for “spent time.” Weinstein was furious that Jackson and Walsh did not consider him the main boss and were considering other proposals. Overall, we can say that Harvey thought he was wronged.
According to the calculations of the studio WETA, the creation of two paintings should have taken at least $ 150 million. When McVeeney himself read the early scripts, he did not believe that these films could be made at all for any money. Not to mention $ 75 million.
But in the end, the road led Jackson and his co-authors to New Line Cinema , whose representatives decided to take a risk and give the writers more creative freedom.
According to McVeeney, the attitude of local producers was completely different from Harvey – they appreciated the material and understood its potential. Moreover, they were delighted to expand this fantasy world.
In addition, during this period, the studio wanted to move to a new level in Hollywood – and the project just came in handy. Therefore, they approved the production of three films, the last of which especially helped in the development of Gollum. In addition, it was at this stage that the Ents and Saruman were added to the tapes , at the same time revealing in more detail many of the secondary characters.
According to McVeeney, if the adaptation had been released in its original form, it would have resembled a film adaptation of The Golden Compass – chaotic and soulless at the same time.
As a result, three films based on “The Lord of the Rings” forever entered the history of cinema. And they are once again reissued for hire.
