The Frodo Franchise by Kristin Thompson
 
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July 10 : 2008

They’re back! Shaye and Lynne form “Unique” company

Variety reports that Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne’s new independent production company has been named “Unique Features.” In mid-June, the pair signed a three-year first-look contract with Warner Bros. That means that they must offer any project they undertake to Warner Bros. for distribution. If Warner doesn’t want the film, they can shop it around to other distributors.

As fans know, Shaye and Lynne departed New Line, the company that Shaye founded in 1967, early this year as part of the downsizing that accompanied Time Warner’s absorption of New Line into its main film production/distribution wing, Warner Bros. Apparently there are not enough hard feelings to prevent the pair from setting up this new arrangement with their former parent company. Unique Features plans to make two to three films per year.

Despite New Line’s problems in recent years, as we all remember, it was Shaye who in 1998 undertook to produce The Lord of the Rings as three feature films and to allow all three to be made simultaneously in New Zealand under Peter Jackson’s supervision. Fans of the film trilogy owe a lot to Shaye, and I for one wish the new company well.

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    The Frodo Franchise
    by Kristin Thompson

    US flagbuy at best price

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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.”