The Frodo Franchise by Kristin Thompson
 
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November 6 : 2008

Update on Rings’s impact on international independent cinema

In Chapter 9 of The Frodo Franchise, I discussed how The Lord of the Rings had a positive impact on independent and foreign-language film markets around the world. Shortly after a major slump hit those markets in 2001, the first part of the trilogy pumped money into the overseas distribution companies that had helped finance LOTR. They in turn put that money into buying more films, helping bring the slump to an end.

For many international independent distributors, New Line was a major source of films. Now with the studio absorbed into Warner Bros., it is no longer distributing its own releases. Warners has its own international distribution system, and it now handles all of New Line’s films.

On “Observations on film art and Film Art,” I’ve just posted an entry on how other companies are moving in to supply overseas distributors. It’s clear from what some of the people running those companies say that the impact of Rings is still being felt. The distributors who benefited from the trilogy are still around and still buying films. As I said in the book, “The international art cinema has emerged the better for this ‘Hollywood’ blockbuster.”

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    The Frodo Franchise
    by Kristin Thompson

    US flagbuy at best price

    Canadian 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.”