Credit: Peter Jackson

How ‘Lord of the Rings’ was almost directed by Quentin Tarantino

Fri 6 May 2022 15:00, UK

There are very few cinematic visions that have been able to match Peter Jackson’s remarkable Lord of the Rings trilogy, with the New Zealand filmmaker taking on J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels with narrative, technical and creative mastery. Released at the very start of the new millennium, the trilogy of films demonstrated how the future of blockbuster filmmaking could flourish, though if it wasn’t for the director’s persistence, a totally different fate could have fallen on the iconic movies.

The peculiar development tale starts at the very infancy of the Lord of the Rings project, where an enthusiastic Peter Jackson was looking for producers for his fantasy epic. Pitching the project to Miramax, the filmmaker came face to face with the disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein who went about getting the rights to the story from Saul Zaentz.

Pitching something totally different from the final project, Jackson proposed a trilogy of films, with the first part being a self-contained Hobbit story and the other two films being a shortened version of the Lord of the Rings story. Miramax and Weinstien were not happy, however, with Disney pressuring their company to reduce the budget on the epic project.

Peter Jackson’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy turns 20

Demanding that Jackson turned the trilogy into one single film, Jackson’s manager Ken Kamins recalls the moment the media mogul gave the filmmaker an ultimatum whilst speaking in an interview with The Independent.

“Harvey was excited,” Kamins initially stated, before adding, “When Disney realised the budget and that we were going to shoot the films back-to-back, and the director was not exactly an A-list name, they made it very clear they were not on board”.

Explaining that Weinstein did not want to accept the pushback from Disney, the producer attempted to appease everyone by inadvertently causing a mess of a pre-production. “Bob Weinstein suggested at one point that we kill three of the Hobbits,” Jackson’s manager further explained, whilst outlining the position of the movie studios, adding, “Disney didn’t want [the adaptation] and the relationship between Peter and Miramax soured”.

With his sinister, egotistical personality common knowledge at this point, Weinstien turned on Jackson with a “Mr Hyde” temper, threatening The Lord of the Rings filmmaker by saying he would replace him as the director with Quentin Tarantino. Recalling the moment, Kamins explains, “He’d threaten to get Quentin Tarantino to direct if Peter couldn’t do it in one film that was two-and-a-half-hours – which was the exact opposite of what he initially told us he wanted”.

Annoyed at the treatment of Miramax and Weinstien, Jackson jumped ship and approached New Line CEO Robert Shaye who accepted the project, but requested that it be made into a trilogy, with the rest being cinema history.

Take a look at the trailer for the iconic first film in the fantasy trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring below, celebrating its 20th year anniversary in 2021.