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July 20 : 2007
On June 10 I posted my most recent entry on the situation with the Hobbit film, editorializing a bit on the dispute between New Line Cinema and Peter Jackson. That received a gratifying amount of attention from fans, so here’s a little update.
The
Frodo Franchise
by Kristin Thompson
Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2007.
hardcover 978-0-520-24774-1
421 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 12 color illustrations; 36 b/w illustrations; 1 map;
1 table
“Once in a lifetime.”
The phrase comes up over and over from the people who worked on Peter Jackson’s
The Lord of the Rings. The film’s 17 Oscars, record-setting earnings,
huge fan base, and hundreds of ancillary products attest to its importance and
to the fact that Rings is far more than a film. Its makers seized a
crucial moment in Hollywood—the special effects digital revolution plus
the rise of “infotainment” and
the Internet—to satisfy the trilogy’s fans while fostering a huge
new international audience. The resulting franchise of franchises has earned
billions of dollars to date with no end in sight.
Kristin Thompson interviewed 76 people to examine the movie’s scripting and design and the new technologies deployed to produce the films, video games, and DVDs. She demonstrates the impact Rings had on the companies that made it, on the fantasy genre, on New Zealand, and on independent cinema. In fast-paced, compulsively readable prose, she affirms Jackson’s Rings as one the most important films ever made.
cover of Penguin Books’ (NZ) edition of The Frodo Franchise, published September 2007. The tiny subtitle reads: “How ‘The Lord of the Rings’ became a Hollywood blockbuster and put New Zealand on the map.”
