The Two Towers 2. The Return of the King 2. They are a New Zealand American venture produced by Wing. Nut Films and The Saul Zaentz Company and distributed by New Line Cinema. Considered to be one of the biggest and most ambitious film projects ever undertaken, with an overall budget of 2. New Zealand, Jacksons native country. Each film in the series also had special extended editions released on DVD a year after their respective theatrical releases. While the films follow the books general storyline, they do omit some of the novels plot elements and include some additions to and deviations from the source material. The latest news articles from Billboard Magazine, including reviews, business, pop, hiphop, rock, dance, country and more. LA Weekly is the definitive source of information for news, music, movies, restaurants, reviews, and events in Los Angeles. Prime Day is a oneday only global shopping event exclusively for Prime members. Sign up to experience the benefits that millions of Prime Members enjoy. Set in the fictional world of Middle earth, the films follow the hobbit. Frodo Baggins Elijah Wood as he and a Fellowship embark on a quest to destroy the One Ring, and thus ensure the destruction of its maker, the Dark Lord Sauron Sala Baker. The Fellowship eventually splits up and Frodo continues the quest together with his loyal companion Sam Sean Astin and the treacherous Gollum Andy Serkis. Meanwhile, Aragorn Viggo Mortensen, heir in exile to the throne of Gondor, Legolas, Gimli, Merry, and Pippin, and the wizard. Gandalf Ian Mc. Kellen unite to rally the Free Peoples of Middle earth in the War of the Ring. The series was received with overwhelming praise and was a major financial success, with the films collectively being among the highest grossing film series of all time. The McDonalds Monopoly game is a sales promotion of McDonalds and Hasbro, which uses the theme of the latters board game Monopoly. The game first ran in the US in. Boffin Watch Techs Mr Happy Elon Musk predicts that AI will start World War III. And for an encore, he predicts which one of you will die next. Download the latest version of RealPlayer or RealTimes and get the latest features Official Site. The films were critically acclaimed and heavily awarded, winning 1. Academy Award nominations. The final film in the series, The Return of the King, won all 1. Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, which also tied it with Ben Hur and Titanic for most Academy Awards received for a film. The series received wide praise for its innovative special and visual effects. DevelopmenteditDirector Peter Jackson first came into contact with The Lord of the Rings when he saw Ralph Bakshis 1. The Lord of the Rings. Jackson enjoyed the film and wanted to know more. Afterwards, he read a tie in edition of the book8 during a twelve hour train journey from Wellington to Auckland when he was seventeen. In 1. 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 Films boss Harvey Weinstein to negotiate with Saul Zaentz who had held the rights to the book since the early 1. 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 1. 99. 6, 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 while Miramax received foreign earnings from King Kong. It was also revealed that Jackson originally wanted to finish King Kong before The Lord of the Rings began. But due to location problems, he decided to start with The Lord of the Rings franchise instead. When Universal cancelled King Kong in 1. 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 Sarumans death, 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 Galadriels mirror, Saruman is redeemed before he dies and the Nazgl 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 7. Order Resident Evil: Degeneration Cartoon. During mid 1. 99. Jackson and Walsh began writing with Stephen Sinclair. Sinclairs partner, Philippa Boyens, was a major fan of the book and joined the writing team after reading their treatment. It took 1. 31. 4 months to write the two film scripts,1. Sinclair left the project due to theatrical obligations. Amongst their revisions, Sam is caught eavesdropping and forced to go along with Frodo, instead of Sam, Merry, and Pippin figuring out about the One Ring themselves and voluntarily going along after confronting Frodo about it, as occurs in the original novel. Gandalfs account of his time at Orthanc was pulled out of flashback and Lothlrien was cut, with Galadriel doing what she does in the story at Rivendell. Denethor attends the Council with his son. Other changes included having Arwen rescue Frodo, and the action sequence involving the cave troll. The writers also considered having Arwen absorb owyns role entirely by having her kill the Witch king. 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 1. Miramax unable to finance this, and with 1. On 1. 7 June 1. 99. Bob Weinstein presented a treatment of a single two hour film version of the book. He suggested cutting Bree and the Battle of Helms Deep, losing or using Saruman, merging Rohan and Gondor with owyn as Boromirs sister, shortening Rivendell and Moria as well as having Ents prevent the Uruk hai from kidnapping Merry and Pippin. Upset by the idea of cutting out half the good stuff1. Jackson balked, and Miramax declared that any script or work completed by Weta Workshop was theirs. Jackson went around Hollywood for four weeks,1. New Line Cinemas Mark Ordesky. 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 this was later corrected New Line only made this choice out of economical reasons 1. Now Jackson, Walsh, and Boyens had to write three new scripts. The expansion to three films allowed much more creative freedom, although Jackson, Walsh, and Boyens had to restructure their script accordingly. The three films do not correspond exactly to the trilogys three volumes, but rather represent a three part adaptation. Jackson takes a more chronological approach to the story than did Tolkien. Frodos quest is the main focus, and Aragorn is the main sub plot,1. Tom Bombadil 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. During shooting, the screenplays continued to evolve, in part due to contributions from cast members looking to further explore their characters.