Set in Middle-earth, the three films follow the young Hobbit Frodo Baggins as he and a Fellowship embark on a quest to destroy the One Ring, and thus ensure the destruction of the Dark Lord Sauron, but the Fellowship becomes broken, and Frodo continues the quest together with his loyal companion Sam and the treacherous Gollum. Meanwhile the Wizard Gandalf and Aragorn, heir in exile to the throne of Gondor, unite and rally the Free Peoples of Middle-earth in several battles cumulating in the War of the Ring. The Wizard Saruman is defeated, the Ring is destroyed, and Sauron and his forces are vanquished.
The movies were directed by Peter Jackson and released by New Line Cinema. The trilogy is based on the book The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien and follows its general storyline, despite some deviations. Considered to be one of the biggest movie projects ever undertaken with an overall budget of $280 million, the entire project took eight years, with the filming for all three films done simultaneously and entirely in Jackson's native New Zealand.
The trilogy was a large financial success, with the films being the 25th, 17th and 5th highest grossing films of alltime respectively, unadjusted for inflation. The films were critically acclaimed, winning 17 Academy Awards in total, as well as wide praise for the cast and innovative practical and digital special effects. Each film in the trilogy also had Special Extended Editions, released a year after the theatrical release on DVD.
Director Peter Jackson first came into contact with The Lord of the Rings when he saw Ralph Bakshi's 1978 film, which he found confusing. Afterwards, he read a tie-in edition of the book during a twelve-hour train journey from Wellington to Auckland when he was seventeen. Jackson's reaction was, "I can't wait until somebody makes a movie of this book because I'd like to see it!
In 1995, Jackson was finishing The Frighteners and considered The Lord of the Rings as a new project, wondering "why nobody else seemed to be doing anything about it". With the new developments in computer generated imagery following Jurassic Park, Jackson set about planning a fantasy film that would be relatively serious and feel "real". By October, he and his partner Fran Walsh teamed up with Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein to negotiate with Saul Zaentz who had held the rights to the book since the early 1970s, pitching an adaptation of The Hobbit and two films based on The Lord of the Rings. Negotiations then stalled when Universal Studios offered Jackson a remake of King Kong. Weinstein was furious, and further problems arose when it turned out Zaentz did not have distribution rights to The Hobbit; United Artists, which was in the market, did. By April 1996 the rights question was still not resolved. Jackson decided to move ahead with King Kong before filming The Lord of the Rings, prompting Universal to enter a deal with Miramax to receive foreign earnings from The Lord of the Rings whilst Miramax received foreign earnings from King Kong.
When Universal cancelled King Kong in 1997, Jackson and Walsh immediately received support from Weinstein and began a six-week process of sorting out the rights. Jackson and Walsh asked Costa Botes to write a synopsis of the book and they began to re-read the book. Two to three months later, they had written their treatment. The first film would have dealt with what would become The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and the beginning of The Return of the King, ending with the death of Saruman, and Gandalf and Pippin going to Minas Tirith. In this treatment Gwaihir and Gandalf visit Edoras after escaping Saruman, Gollum attacks Frodo when the Fellowship is still united, and Farmer Maggot, Glorfindel, Radagast, Elladan and Elrohir are present. Bilbo attends the Council of Elrond, Sam looks into Galadriel's mirror, Saruman is redeemed before he dies and the Nazgûl just make it into Mount Doom before they fall. They presented their treatment to Harvey and Bob Weinstein, the latter of whom they focused on impressing with their screenwriting as he had not read the book. They agreed upon two films and a total budget of $75 million.
During mid-1997, Jackson and Walsh began writing with Stephen Sinclair. Sinclair's partner, Philippa Boyens, was a major fan of the book and joined the writing team after reading their treatment. It took 13-14 months to write the two film scripts, which were 147 and 144 pages respectively. Sinclair left the project due to theatrical obligations. Amongst their revisions, Sam, Merry and Pippin are caught eavesdropping and forced to go along with Frodo. Gandalf's account of his time at Orthanc was pulled out of flashback and Lothlórien was cut with Galadriel attending the Council of Elrond. Denethor, Boromir's father, also attends the Council, and other changes included having Arwen rescue Frodo, and the action sequence involving the cave troll. Arwen was even going to kill the Witch-king. Most significantly, there was an all-new sequence. A Ringwraith kills Saruman and attacks Gandalf at Orthanc. Seeing this from the Seeing Seat, now at Emyn Muil rather than Amon Hen, Frodo puts on the Ring and draws him all the way to the Seat on his Fell beast. Frodo manages to save Sam and stabs the wraith in his heart.
Trouble struck when Marty Katz was sent to New Zealand. Spending four months there, he told Miramax that the films were more likely to cost $150 million, and with Miramax unable to finance this, and with $15 million already spent, they decided to merge the two films into one. On June 17 1998, Bob Weinstein presented a treatment of a single two-hour film version of the book. He suggested cutting Bree and the Battle of Helm's Deep, "losing or using" Saruman, merging Rohan and Gondor with Éowyn as Boromir's sister, shortening Rivendell and Moria as well as having Ents prevent the Uruk-hai kidnapping Merry and Pippin. Upset by the idea of "cutting out half the good stuff" Jackson balked, and Miramax declared that any script or Weta Workshop's work was theirs. Jackson went around Hollywood for four weeks, showing a thirty-five minute video of their work, before meeting with Mark Ordesky of New Line Cinema. At New Line Cinema, Robert Shaye viewed the video, and then asked why they were making two films when the book was published as three volumes; he wanted to make a film trilogy. Now Jackson, Walsh and Boyens had to write three new scripts.
The expansion to three films allowed a lot more creative freedom, and Jackson, Walsh and Boyens had to restructure their script accordingly. Each film is not exactly based on each volume of the book, but rather they represent a three-part adaptation, as Jackson takes a more chronological approach to the story, whilst Tolkien retold chunks of his fictional history. Frodo's quest is the main focus, and Aragorn is the main subplot, and many sequences (such as Tom Bombadil and the Scouring of the Shire) that do not contribute directly to those two plots were left out. Much effort was put into creating satisfactory conclusions and making sure exposition did not bog down the pacing. Amongst new sequences, there are also expansions on elements Tolkien kept ambiguous, such as the battles and the creatures.
Above all, most characters have been altered for extra drama. Aragorn, Théoden and Treebeard have added or modified elements of self-doubt, whilst Galadriel, Elrond and Faramir have been darkened. Boromir and Gollum are (arguably) relatively more sympathetic, whilst some characters such as Legolas, Gimli, Saruman and Denethor have been simplified. Some characters, such as Arwen and Éomer, are given actions from minor characters such as Glorfindel and Erkenbrand, and generally lines of dialogue are somewhat preserved or switched around between locations or characters depending on suitability of the scenes. New scenes were also added to expand on characterization. In the meantime, during shooting, the screenplays would undergo many daily transformations, due to contributions from cast looking to further explore their characters. Most notable amongst these rewrites was the character Arwen, who was originally planned as a warrior princess, but reverted back to her book counterpart, who remains physically inactive in the story (though she sends moral and military support).
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