Peter Jackson’s hidden jab at Harvey Weinstein in ‘Lord of the Rings’
In a cinematic world of CGI, green screen and motion capture, the art of immersing an audience within a fantasy world has become lost. Of course, films like James Cameron’s Avatar and Christopher Nolan’s Inception have been able to create tangible worlds using abundant CGI, but largely, when considering the realm of world-building, it is Denis Villeneuve’s Dune and Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings that Hollywood deeply admires.
Transporting audiences with his vision of Middle Earth, adapted from J. R. R. Tolkien’s iconic fantasy novels of the same name, Jackson’s Lord of the Rings forever changed Hollywood’s approach to the genre. Made with a focus on practical sets, costumes, props and much more, Jackson was able to create a timeless piece of cinema that cost a pretty penny but made all its money back and then some.
The production wasn’t smooth sailing, however, with Jackson facing many roadblocks along the way, including a run-in with the since disgraced Hollywood movie mogul – and convicted rapist – Harvey Weinstein.
Frustrated that Jackson would not back down from his high-concept approach to the source material, Weinstein threatened to replace the director with none other than Quentin Tarantino. Eventually, the director encouraged Weinstein to get on board, but the bitter resentment between the pair never truly healed.
This led to Jackson taking a number of in-movie jabs at Weinstein, with the most well-hidden one coming when Harvey, and his brother Bob Weinstein, appeared in the credits for 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Appearing as executive producers, their names are placed in the forefront of a pencil sketch of a figure fighting against two towering trolls – no doubt a metaphor for Jackson’s experience of getting his movie made with the bullish producers getting in his way.
This wasn’t the only jab Jackson made either, with the props department using Harvey Weinstein’s likeness to create an Orc mask in the movie.
Speaking about this hilarious detail, lead star Elijah Wood stated: “It’s funny, this was recently spoken about because Dom [Monaghan] and Bill [Boyd] have a podcast, The Friendship Onion. They were talking to Sean Astin about his first memory of getting to New Zealand…He had seen these Orc masks. And one of the Orc masks — and I remember this vividly — was designed to look like Harvey Weinstein as a sort of a fuck you”.
The final movie in the celebrated trilogy, Return of the King, went on to win 11 Academy Awards, including ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’, with Jackson’s career taking off in the industry during the early 21st century. As for Harvey Weinstein, his name is considered a blight on Hollywood, representing everything wrong and corrupt about the former world of showbiz, which is steadily working to heal itself.
Seems like that Orc comparison was pretty spot-on.
