The Frodo Franchise by Kristin Thompson
 
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September 11 : 2008

Off for Vancouver

I want to let you all know that tomorrow my husband and I are leaving on a long driving trip out to see the Pacific Northwest. We’ll end up at the Vancouver International Film Festival, where we’ll spend a week and a half catching up on the latest art movies and documentaries. We’re aiming to be home by October 10 or 11.

I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to blog during all this. On September 22, of course, another meeting will be held in the Tolkien Trust vs. New Line lawsuit, and there should be a ruling on the second Demurrer. If there’s any big news, I’ll try to comment, but I’ll leave it to TheOneRing.net to keep us all up-to-date.

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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.”