Middle Earth Production Costs
I know this isn't Disney, but I am a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films. People believed that Walt Disney wanted to make an adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkien books, but this isn't the case. Supposedly, Tolkien's publishers reached out to Walt Disney to see if he wanted to make an adaptation of the books, but Disney turned them down stating that production costs would be too high. Tolkien himself wasn't a fan of the Disney Company. He stated, "It might be advisable to let the Americans do what seems good to them — as long as it was possible…to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing." The first animated films based on the books wouldn't appear until 1977, 1978, and 1980. Although, there was an animated short film (12 minutes) released in 1966 and directed by Gene Deitch. It didn't hav...