According to a new essay published by an insider, the LOTR movies almost looked very different. Photo / New Line CinemaAn essay has detailed an alleged power struggle between Sir Peter Jackson and disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Drew McWeeny wrote an article for Polygon, outlining how Weinstein may have stonewalled Jackson’s vision for the fantasy franchise based on JRR Tolkien’s novels.
The writer, who worked for the outlet Ain’t It Cool News, says he had a script for a two-film version of the Lord of the Rings leaked to him by Weta studios and WingNut, in a bid to save the film from Weinstein’s influence. IndieWire reports the hope was New Line Cinema would decide to house LOTR.
“Peter Jackson had already had some contact with Ain’t It Cool at that point and there were many people within WingNut and Weta who were also reaching out.
“They felt like they were creating something great, and were worried they wouldn’t be able to find a studio willing to step up. So a decision was made to leak the scripts to Ain’t It Cool in a way that everyone could deny later.
“They didn’t come directly from anyone and no one ever officially asked us to cover them, so if I was ever pressed, I could honestly say that it wasn’t Peter or Fran [Walsh]. What’s clear, though, is that I was given access to them so I could talk about what I thought at the exact moment that New Line was trying to make their decision.”
The essay on Polygon also alleges Weinstein hid how much he was willing to spend on the film from Jackson.
McWeeny writes the franchise was almost a two-movie project: “I may be one of the few people outside of Jackson’s production company, WingNut Films, to have ever read that version of the project, which have compacted the action told in 558 minutes into two-thirds of that runtime.
“How Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and Return of the King came to be the films that we know is the movie business in a nutshell.
“For Harvey Weinstein and his brother/business partner, Lord of the Rings was all about making Peter Jackson happy, but within limits.
“They didn’t understand Tolkien, and they didn’t believe in the material. They only saw it as a chance to stay in the Peter Jackson business for a cost.
“More than anything, the two-film version felt like every choice they made was about trying to turn these into more conventional blockbusters at the expense of the dense history and the poetry that defines Tolkien’s work.”
Weinstein and her brother Bob were ultimately still credited as executive producers of the film franchise. According to the essay, Jackson was able to turn LOTR into a three-film franchise thanks to the support and encouragement of New Line.