Lord Of The Rings Rewind: 38 Things You Didn’t Know About The Fellowship Of The Ring – GameSpot

By the time the first movie in Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings hit screens, JRR Tolkien's classic fantasy series was already over 40 years old. The influence of Tolkien's books on fantasy storytelling in the second half of the 20th century is incalculable, from movies, TV shows, and novels to comic books, video games, and role-playing. Fantasy literature existed before the publication of the Lord of the Rings of course, but many of the tropes and conventions that have become part of the genre were drawn directly from Tolkien's stories. Nevertheless, the impact of Jackson's adaptations was such that, nearly 20 years later, they are the first thing that many fans think of when The Lord of the Rings is mentioned.

The movies had a long journey to screen. Jackson and his wife and filmmaking partner Fran Walsh first started developing them in 1995, with the project moving between several studios, and questions over whether it would be one, two, or three films. The series finally found a home at New Line Cinema, which agreed to let Jackson make the three movies he wanted, shot back-to-back in his native New Zealand.

While Jackson was a favorite among certain movie fans, for both his early horror comedies and acclaimed dramas like Heavenly Creatures, he had never tackled a project of The Lord of the Rings' scale. And shooting all three films at once was also a risk for the studio--if the first movie flopped, New Line and parent company Warner Bros would still be committed to releasing the next two parts.

But the risk paid off. The Fellowship of the RIng hit theaters in December 2001 and was a critical and commercial smash, with both fans and critics quickly recognising that Jackson and his team had set a new standard for fantasy filmmaking. The next two movies were just as successful, and in total, the series grossed more than $2.9 billion at the global box office.

The appeal of the series has never dipped either, and the movies continue to influence and inspire to this day. The story of their making is just as fascinating, the way the films took shape as they continued to be shot, and the decisions that Jackson, Walsh, and co-writer Philippa Boyens made when adapting Tolkien's work for the screen.

We've been back through the epic filmmaker and cast commentaries that were first released with the extended DVD version of The Fellowship of the Ring in 2002 to find some fascinating behind-the-scenes facts, references, and Easter Eggs. Let's delve greedily... and deeply.

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Lord Of The Rings Rewind: 38 Things You Didn't Know About The Fellowship Of The Ring - GameSpot