The Frodo Franchise by Kristin Thompson
 
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June 6 : 2008

A Hobbit panel at Comic-Con

I haven’t posted much lately. That’s partly because there hasn’t been a lot of news—though plenty of speculation. It’s also partly because my husband David Bordwell and I have been hard at work on the revisions for the third edition of our textbook Film History: An Introduction. Now that it has been shipped off to the press, I’ve got a lot more time. I may need it, too. Even as I write, that meeting concerning the Tolkien Trust’s lawsuit against New Line is presumably happening in Los Angeles. There may not be any immediate announcement of progress or changes resulting, but I suspect we’ll hear something in the not-too-distant future.

In the meantime, I did get one piece of excellent news yesterday. My friends at TheOneRing.net have asked me to join them on a panel concerning the Hobbit films at Comic-Con! I’ve never been to Comic-Con (San Diego Convention Center, July 24-27), which I discuss briefly in The Frodo Franchise, but for years I’ve wanted to go. I interviewed some members of the TORN team for the book, and I look forward to meeting more of them in person. John Howe is among the announced guests, so maybe I’ll get to meet him as well. John was very cordial about letting me reproduce one of his paintings in the book, but that was all handled by mail. Of course it has been confirmed that he’ll be working alongside Alan Lee and the rest of the designers on the Hobbit project. And finally, I hope to meet those of you who will be attending Comic-Con.

I’ll post information on the TORN panel closer to the time, and I certainly expect, like many other fans, to be blogging from Comic-Con. There’ll be some companies associated with the LOTR franchise, like Sideshow Collectibles and perhaps Weta Workshop, so I’ll be sure to check out their displays.

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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.”