The Frodo Franchise by Kristin Thompson
 
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February 26 : 2010

Overhaul of the LOTR official site

TheOneRing.net alerts us to the fact that the LOTR official website has been redesigned in preparation for the April 6 release of the theatrical-version DVDs. Pre-orders are available.

So far there’s not a whole lot there, and maybe it will never grow large. I’m glad I still have my “Wizards” screensaver, acquired c. 2002, since all those and the other free downloads seem to be gone. (They did remain available for a long time.)

Not surprisingly, the old New Line shop is nowhere to be found. LOTR stuff is now sold on Warner Bros.’ online shop. There are still a few of the old franchise items on offer in the various categories–the Noble chess set and a half dozen or so of the Sideshow Weta figures and so on.

There’s also a link to the LOTR Facebook site. I’m rather glad that Facebook and Twitter weren’t around when I was researching the LOTR film trilogy and the internet. I’m on Facebook, but I’m barely active there, and I don’t tweet. In those days it was mostly Yahoo! groups and personal websites. Live Journal wasn’t even a factor yet.

I have to admit that the trilogy is slipped further back into history, but the franchise, however reduced, continues

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    The Frodo Franchise
    by Kristin Thompson

    US flagbuy at best price

    Canadian flagbuy at best price

    UK flagbuy at best price

    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.”