The Frodo Franchise by Kristin Thompson
 
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August 12 : 2011

Latest issue of Weta News available

For those not signed up to receive Weta News regularly, the new issue has arrived. You can see it online here. There’s an item about a new edition of Ian Brodie’s invaluable guide to locations and a link to a photo of Steven Fry posing in the Weta Cave. And speaking of the Weta Cave, the branch in Auckland is opening in a week. Mary Pike, newly appointed head of Weta Workshop’s 3D modelling department, is interviewed. There’s no mention of The Hobbit, but Mary says “I pretty much work on all projects that come through the workshop.” The interview also provides interesting insight into how those lucky few manage to get jobs at Weta.

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    The Frodo Franchise
    by Kristin Thompson

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    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.

    The Frodo Franchise

    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.”