The Frodo Franchise by Kristin Thompson
 
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May 14 : 2008

A 20-questions session on The Hobbit!

In The Frodo Franchise I described the two online 20-questions sessions about the Lord of the Rings project that happened in August and December of 1998. Those sessions were hosted by Harry Knowles on his Ain’t It Cool News site. (Both of them seem no longer to be on the site. I hope at some point they can be reposted as important historical documents.) Fans sent in questions, which were winnowed down by Harry and answered by Peter Jackson. New Line requested that the question sessions end, so no more of them happened.

By now the benefits of direct connections between filmmakers and fans via the internet have been more widely recognized by the studios. Peter and Guillermo Del Toro have announced that they’ll be doing the same sort of thing for The Hobbit with a live online chat session on May 24. They’re calling it “An Unexpected Party.” Here’s the announcement I got via email today from Weta News, which is hosting the event and some links for registering for it:

Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro invite you to a live internet chat about The Hobbit.

Peter and Guillermo would love to answer your questions and hear your comments about our new adventure into Middle-Earth.

Please register now to make sure you don’t miss out on the Unexpected Party and get regular updates on the movies.

Weta are excited to be hosting this one-hour live online chat on our website www.wetaNZ.com. Please check the start time for your time zone below:

Los Angeles (Pacific)
New York (Eastern)
London
Paris, Berlin, Rome
Sydney
Wellington, Auckland		 Saturday 24 May 1 pm
Saturday 24 May 4 pm
Saturday 24 May 9 pm
Saturday 24 May 10 pm
Sunday 25 May 6 am
Sunday 25 May 8
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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.”