The Frodo Franchise by Kristin Thompson
 
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December 20 : 2009

Cameron inspired by Lord of the Rings

Today Michael Fleming posted an interview with James Cameron on his Variety blog. Cameron has said in several interviews I’ve read that he decided to make Avatar because the creation of Gollum in the LOTR trilogy made him realize that CGI technology had evolved far enough to make his film possible. In this new interview, though, he praises the trilogy as a whole more enthusiastically than I have seen previously.

Variety is starting to put up a selective pay-wall, so in case you can’t get through to the interview, here’s the relevant passage (though the interview as a whole has some interesting things to say about the future of 3D):

When I see a movie that excites me visually, the feeling is extraordinary. I went to see `Lord of the Rings’ for entertainment, but you begin to think, is this something I can incorporate? That’s how this works and it goes in cycles. Peter Jackson inspired me with consummate filmmaking and the specificity of the CG that made me feel a doorway opening that enabled me to make `Avatar.’

Cameron is already talking about making two sequels to Avatar, and I would not be at all surprised if he once again chose Weta as his special-effects house.

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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.”