The movie Peter Jackson wanted to erase from his mind
Bringing The Lord of the Rings to the screen was a herculean effort from conception to execution, and it would be an understatement to say the mammoth production exacted a huge personal and professional toll on Peter Jackson.
From initially acquiring the rights in 1995 and pitching it to studios through to the eventual release of the concluding chapter, The Return of the Ring, released in December of 2003, almost an entire decade of the filmmaker’s existence was spent living and breathing J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy world nonstop.
As a result, he never got the chance to enjoy the trio as an audience member properly, and he almost resorted to drastic measures in an effort to recapture that experience. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Jackson dubbed himself as “the unlucky person who never got to see them as a coming-out-of-the-blue-film”.
Of course, by the time the dust had settled, The Lord of the Rings had earned almost $3billion at the box office and hoovered up a total of 17 Academy Awards, leaving Jackson in the unique position of being on the inside looking out: “By the time they were screening, I was immersed in it for five or six years. It was such a loss for me not be able to see them like everyone else.”
Such was his desire to witness the seminal blockbuster epics with a brand new perspective – and without the baggage that came with steering them across the finish line in such arduous fashion – Jackson admitted that he “did seriously consider going to some hypnotherapy guy to hypnotise me to make forget about the films and the work I had done over the last six or seven years so I could sit and enjoy them.”
Although he did note that he “didn’t follow through with it”, the eventual architect of The Hobbit trilogy revealed that he “did talk to Derren Brown about that”, with the illusionist and mentalist believing that he thought he could do it. It sounds ridiculous and borderline unbelievable, but Jackson enlisting the help of Brown to make him actively forget The Lord of the Rings so he could see them unburdened by his attachment almost did really happen.
Wiping the trilogy from his memory didn’t come to fruition. Still, perhaps Jackson should have had Brown make him forget the moment that almost broke him during shooting on The Two Towers, where he told The Telegraph that producer Barrie M. Osborne had followed him to the summit of the Helm’s Deep set for the sole purpose of telling him he was being threatened with a lawsuit for going over-budget.
Regaling how Michael Lynne from New Line Cinema was “going to threaten to sue you and sell the house from under you to cover the cost overruns,” Jackson deemed it “one of the only points where I really snapped.” With that in mind, maybe it’s not so surprising he almost resorted to drastic measures to witness The Lord of the Rings with a completely fresh pair of eyes.
