The Third Age: the Lord of the Rings [Recent Events]

Bob Shaye didn’t know it at the time, but when he met with director Peter Jackson to discuss making “Lord of the Rings,” the New Line Cinema founder was the filmmaker’s last hope.

For several years, the quirky New Zealand writer-director had been working on the project of a lifetime, trying to find a way to turn the wondrously mythic saga of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” into a two-part series of films. Jackson’s efforts had initially been bankrolled by Miramax, which had released his breakthrough 1994 film “Heavenly Creatures.” Miramax had managed to get the “Rings” rights from producer Saul Zaentz, who’d owned them for years. But when Miramax was unable to get a partner to invest in the projected series, studio chiefs Harvey and Bob Weinstein decided to scale back the project. At a meeting with Jackson in June 1998, the Weinsteins suggested slimming the films down to one three-hour epic.

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