http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,321 ... 60,00.html
Jackson nearly lost the 'Ring'
14 March 2005
By GARRY MADDOX

Director Peter Jackson came close to being replaced on The Lord of the Rings after an acrimonious meeting with the Hollywood powerbroker Harvey Weinstein in 1997, he has told a Sydney audience.


The co-founder of Miramax Films told Jackson he had Shakespeare in Love director John Madden ready as replacement if the New Zealander did not want to adapt Tolkien's novel into a single two-hour movie.

He also had a replacement scriptwriter and handed over a three-page outline showing how the novel could be compressed.

At the time, Jackson had been working for 18 months on a two-movie adaptation which would have cost about $US140 million ($177 million). Weinstein told Jackson and his wife and scriptwriting partner Fran Walsh that Miramax could not afford to make the movies under its $US75 million budget cap from parent company Disney.

"We just felt sick," said Jackson, who drank his first-ever glass of scotch after the meeting to settle his nerves. "We were literally trembling ... just so shattered and sort of emotional."

In a break from filming King Kong in New Zealand, Jackson was speaking at the State Theatre on Saturday night in connection with the Powerhouse Museum's Lord of the Rings exhibition.

He described the Miramax showdown as a "tense, horrible, nasty" time.

Before responding to the proposal by Weinstein, Jackson and Walsh flew back to New Zealand. They went to an isolated lodge to celebrate Walsh's birthday.

"That evening, we walked on the beach at this place and we just decided there was no way we could be involved," said Jackson. "It would be a debacle."

Their agent was delegated to tell Weinstein the decision. Unknown to Jackson and Walsh, the agent negotiated for a month to find another studio. Jackson thought this was "impossible" in such a short time.

But a hastily made documentary on the planned movies interested New Line Cinemas Bob Shaye, who surprisingly offered to back three movies instead of two.

The trilogy went on to gross almost $US3 billion at the international box office and win 17 Oscars.

I remember hearing about that back in 2001.

They almost settled on 2 films, which would have been feasible but trilogy just sounds a lot better.

I'm interested, in 20 years, to see a more in depth no-holds barred documentary about how these movies came to be made.

I have no doubt that the process for the actors and crew was as "magical" as they all seem to remember, but the behind the scenes dealings with Miramax and even New Line were much, much more dicey. It's hinted at on the EE documentaries but anything involving the business end of the deal is pretty much glossed over.

I'd also love to see footage someday of Stuart Townsend as Aragorn.

I'd also love to read the scripts for the "two movie" Lord of the Rings and the shorter adaptations that were proposed.

I think it'll be fun in the meanwhile just to take a red marker to the existing scripts on your own.

For example, Helm's Deep needed to either end the first film or start the second one.

:worthy: Bob Shaye

I wish they did lose it. i like LOTR and all....but god they are annoying when people dont stop mentioning them.

You know, those showed up on eBay about two months ago, but ended up going for over $500. I was in the running for a little while.

If i'd known that i may have been tempted!!

so you wish a great film series never existed just to satisfy your petty quirks?






WHAT A GRADE-A FUCKTARD =D> =D> =D>

Welcome to March 2001 : )

anyhoo
the extended edition has a complete detail on how he almost lost the entire franchise. Its very cool.

Yeah! Just like you, I was forced to read this thread! I'm sick and tired of seeing threads about LOTR and being forced to read about them! If only I had free will and a mind of my own, but you know what that's like, right?

Grabbed these from TORN.

Securing the rights

There were many highly improbable events detailed in the 30-minute recount of securing the rights and, as interviewer David Stratton suggested, it’s almost movie-worthy in its own right.

Weta had acquired its first computer at the time of Heavenly Creatures. By the time they finished The Frighteners, they had 30 computers. Peter Jackson wondered what a fantasy movie would be like using CG. He and Fran tossed around ideas using Lord of the Rings as a reference, but never at first, actually contemplating the Lord of Rings as it was “too big”. But gradually they asked their agent to make some tentative enquires as to who had the rights.

The agent discovered it was Saul Zaentz who was notoriously reluctant about giving them away. However, due to Saul Zaentz-produced The English Patient, which was funded by Harvey Weinstein (working for Miramax which was owned by Disney). As Harvey funding the English Patient when its original funding was cancelled, Saul Zaentz (Producer) owed Harvey a favour, and Harvey called in this favour to get Peter Jackson the rights, after the plug was pulled for King Kong (because Godzilla and Mighty Joe Young had both underperformed). Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh developed the scripts for two films, one ending at Helms Deep, effectively condensing the first two books into one film. They were budgeted at about $140 million each. However, Harvey could only greenlight films of $75 million and suggested they do it as one film. He said, in a meeting in New York in July 1997, they even had a scriptwriter and director standing by if Peter didn’t want to do it. (Peter suggested this could have been a bluff).

Peter told Harvey, rightly, that all the fans would be disappointed with a 2-hour condensed version. Peter Jackson has a document that has never been seen by the public – the 3 page outline prepared by Harvey’s people, condensing the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy down to 2 hours – Moria was to deleted altogether and only referred to in conversation, while Theoden and Denothor were going to be merged as one character, just as Rohan and Gondor were to merged as one realm.

At this stage, pre-production on the two movie version was well advanced, with Weta, John Howe and Alan Lee. The Helm’s Deep and Rivendell miniatures (bigatures) had been done as well as various maquettes.

Peter and Fran told Harvey they would think about it, then flew back to New Zealand, and immediately by chopper to a remote location for Fran’s birthday. Peter called his agent to tell him to tell Harvey they would NOT be doing it.

However, unknown to them, Peter’s agent used initiative and secured Peter 4 weeks to pitch it the two-movie version elsewhere, so that another studio could repay Harvey the $10 million they’d already spent on it.

Given the 4 week deadline, Peter and Fran set to work immediately preparing a 35 minute making of documentary, interviewing themselves, Alan Lee, and showing lit models of some of the miniatures. They then lined up just two meetings, with Polygram and New Line – all other studios turned them down without even granting a meeting or seeing the video.

Polygram, who being a British company, were interested, but as they were being sold in the next 5-6 months, could not commit to something so expensive in the few weeks remaining to close this deal.

The second and final meeting, their last chance, to pitch the idea was with New Line. Peter Jackson, disarmingly jovial, but obviously shrewd underneath, was playing poker with them, cancelling on the meeting several times, pretending he was “hot property”. The “mercurial” Bob Shay saw the video, and the rest is history.

Another account

Peter recounted how at a horribly tense meeting with Harvey Weinstein (during which time the 2 film version was already well underway), he tried to make Fran and Pete agree to doing LOTR as one film ("not a Gone with the Wind or a Lawrence of Arabia-type epic - he was talking a 2 hour film.") When they asked how could they possibly write such a script, Harvey produced a 3 page 'I-had-one-prepared-earlier' type outline. It was of course a ridiculously condensed version of the books which P & F knew anyone who had EVER read the books would HATE. It included such travesties as...ignoring the Mines of Moria altogther (it had Frodo merely emerging from the gates and saying something like 'wasn't that exciting then?'/ Gondor and Rohan being lumped into one people/ Denethor and Theodon being amalgamated into one character (!!) Harvey also told them he had lined up an alternative writer and director willing to do the one film, should they refuse.

Years ago on another board, we toyed with the idea of how we would outline a two-hour LotR movie. I came up with something similar to what Miramax did, it seems. After a cursory Hobbit and Ring intro, The Council would take place in Bree. A Fellowship of 4 -- Gandalf, Aragorn, Frodo and Sam -- would try to go to Mordor together. They would get separated (the breaking of the Fellowship) in some battle. Aragorn/Gandalf would go rouse up Gondor for decoy, while Frodo/Sam would go on to destroy the Ring. I ditched Moria entirely, ditched Rohan entirely, and ditched the race of Elves entirely. It's doable, but not LotR.

What's funny to me and speaks volumes for Miramax is how they skipped completely over a 3.5 hour version and straight to an 2 hour+ version. There's a world of difference in terms of content between those two running times.