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The Lord of the Rings (movie series)

The Lord of the Rings movie series is a set of three fantasy movies: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002) and The Return of the King (2003). The movies were based on J. R. R. Tolkien's book The Lord of the Rings.

The plot of The Lord of the Rings is about the war of the peoples of the fantasy world Middle-earth against a dark lord known as "Sauron." At the same time they try to destroy a ring which would give Sauron a lot of power if he got it, but the only place to destroy the ring is deep into Sauron's land Mordor.

The movie trilogy was directed by Peter Jackson. The screenplay was written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson. It was distributed by New Line Cinema.

These were the first live-action Lord of the Rings movies made. They were filmed in New Zealand from October 1999 to December 2000, and released separately in December 2001–2003 by Warner Bros.

Jackson returned for a prequel The Hobbit trilogy and two more movies are in development: an animated The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim prequel movie and a live-action The Hunt for Gollum movie.

Movies

Movie U.S. release date Director Screenwriters Story by Producers
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring December 19, 2001 (2001-12-19) Peter Jackson Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson Barrie M. Osborne, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Tim Sanders
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers December 18, 2002 (2002-12-18) Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Stephen Sinclair & Peter Jackson Barrie M. Osborne, Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson and Eric Monette
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King December 17, 2003 (2003-12-17) Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson
The Hobbit trilogy
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey December 14, 2012 (2012-12-14) Peter Jackson Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson & Guillermo del Toro Carolynne Cunningham, Zane Weiner, Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug December 13, 2013 (2013-12-13) Carolynne Cunningham, Zane Weiner, Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson and Eric Monette
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies December 17, 2014 (2014-12-17)
Standalone movies
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim December 13, 2024 (2024-12-13) Kenji Kamiyama Phoebe Gittins & Arty Papageorgiou Jeffrey Addiss & Will Matthews Philippa Boyens, Joseph Chou and Jason DeMarco
The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum 2026 Andy Serkis Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens

and Phoebe Gittins & Arty Papageorgiou

Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson

Cast and characters

 
The remains of the Hobbiton set after filming, near Matamata, New Zealand
 
The remains of Bag End on the Hobbiton set near Matamata, New Zealand

The cast includes:

Changes from the book

Compared to the book, the Lord of the Rings movies differed in many ways. The plot and motivation of the characters changed, and parts of the story were cut. A few changes that many consider major include: "The Old Forest", "In the House of Tom Bombadil", and "Fog on the Barrow-Downs", from The Fellowship of the Ring; "Many Partings", "Homeward Bound", & "The Scouring of the Shire" from The Return of the King. These were left out, and other passages changed, because of dramatic flow and practical limits on what could be presented in three movies. The scripts are not exactly true to the story in the volumes of the book, yet have most of its most important elements.

Trivia

  • Together the three movies were nominated for 30 Oscars at the Academy Awards. They won 17 Oscars, 11 of which were for Return of the King.
  • The 3 movies cost 281 million dollars to make.
  • Much of the filming was done in New Zealand, but some areas were made using computers.
  • Each movie has a Special Extended Edition DVD which has a longer version of the movie.
  • Together the movies are longer than 11 hours.
  • All together the movies have more than 3,500 special effects.
  • Each movie was released a few weeks before Christmas in 2001, 2002, and 2003.
  • The movies made nearly 3 billion dollars.

Other websites

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