The original pitch for Lord of The Rings

Peter Jacksons pitch for the filming of Lord of The Rings as imagined by David Weinberger:

I'd like to film one of the most beloved and jealously protected literary properties in history.

I'd like to turn it into a sword-and-dwarves epic that will run somewhere between 9 and 11 hours.

I plan on shooting the largest, most complex battle scenes in history. And you can trust me based on my work in Heavenly Creatures.

We'll have to invent the most convincing CGI effects ever. In fact, the pivotal character will be made entirely of pixels. And you can trust me to bring true humanity to the art of digital acting based on my breakthrough work in Meet the Feebles.

A work of this scale will require marshalling 25,000 people over the course of several years. And I think I proved my ability to do so with Valley of the Stereos.

As far as I know he actually didn't have the audacity to suggest more than 5-6 hours - the studio upped the ante from 2 to 3 films. Also, we've all now seen the elaborate visualisations of various scenes made to prove to the studio that Jackson could pull it off. Whether the films actually came in on budget I don't know. Presumably one could tell pretty early on in the shooting that Jackson was on to something. Posted by Claus at March 10, 2004 12:50 AM | TrackBack (0)