The studio's betting $135 million that it can, announcing plans Monday to produce three live-action, feature-length films based on J.R.R. Tolkien's classic Lord of the Rings trilogy. It will be the most ambitious New Line project ever.
Helming the series will be New Zealand visual-effects ace Peter Jackson, whose resume includes the underperforming 1996 horror film The Frighteners (starring Michael J. Fox) and Heavenly Creatures, which featured Kate Winslet's debut.
Shooting will begin mid-'99 in New Zealand and take a full year. The movies will be filmed back-to-back-to-back, with the first installment tentatively set for Christmas 2000.
But box-office success might prove more difficult than Frodo's quest for the Magic Ring of Invisibility. Why is New Line taking a huge chance on a genre that's never really been that successful in live-action cinema (fantasy), with a relatively obscure director (Jackson) and a story that's already bombed once before (Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings in 1978)?
Clearly, the studio is banking on the international appeal of Tolkien's work. The three novels (The Fellowship of the Ring, Two Towers, The Return of the King) that make up Lord of the Rings have sold more than 50 million copies worldwide in 25 different languages. And, as New Line touts in its announcement, Tolkien's trilogy "was named the "No. 1 Book of the Century in a survey of more than 25,000 avid readers in the United Kingdom."
"The numbers support our enthusiasm for the project. We believe international interest, licensing and promotional opportunities will be extraordinary," says studio production boss Michael De Luca.
New Line is so confident that the new Tolkein trilogy will draw fans that the studio has also acquired film rights to Tolkien's The Hobbit, a prequel to the events depicted in Lord of the Rings.
Besides, nobody is better suited to use new F/X technology than New Line, according to Exhibitor Relations president Paul Dergarabedian.
"Look at Blade--New Line knows how to market fantasy films," he says.
"But they've got to be careful not to offend the aficionados," Dergarabedian cautions. "There's certainly so many people who know those books really well. You're treading on sacred ground for some of those people."