Over the past fifty years, there were four serious attempts by Hollywood to adapt The Lord of the Rings, only two of which made it to film: Ralph Bakshi's 1978 version; and, of course, Peter Jackson's triumphant trilogy.
The other two serious attempts (not including the Beatles' desire to make the movie with Paul McCartney as Frodo), didn't make it beyond a script. This is probably a good thing. The really interesting article below summarizes the first two attempts, by Morton Grady Zimmerman in 1957, and John Boorman (who went on to direct Excalibur) in 1970, as well as the first drafts of the script that became Bakshi's movie.
Had these scripts been made, we would have seen such wondrous sights as:
Gandalf turning the Nazgul to stone!
Gimli stuck in a hole and beaten by the Fellowship!
Frodo and Galadriel . . . uh . . . getting to know each other better!
Yes, all this and more is explained, here.
1 comment:
Slight correction; the Bakshi animated version only covered the first two books. The Return of the King was later done separately by Rankin-Bass (and included such stirring songs as "Where There's a Whip, There's a Way").
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