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 have the best animation.
There were also a few other foreign adaptations produced, either live-action or animated. They were all low-budget and low-quality.
We finally got the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films in 2001, 2002, and 2003, with The Hobbits being released in 2012, 2013, and 2014. These films were all of higher production quality, but they came with a high production cost. In 2022, we got the Amazon-produced series The Rings of Power, which is the most expensive television series ever made. The series cost more to produce than all six of the films combined. Here is a breakdown of the production costs.

BONUS FACTS: Topcraft released The Hobbit (1977) and The Return of the King (1980) before they went bankrupt. They are also known for The Last Unicorn (1982) and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984). After the company went bankrupt, three of its top animators, Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki, and Isao Takahata, bought out half the company and renamed it Studio Ghibli. The other half of Topcraft became Pacific Animation Corporation and lasted until 1988 when it was bought out by Disney and was renamed Walt Disney Animation Japan. 


If you liked these facts, check out my book with over 3,700 fun facts in it about Disneyland, California Adventure, and Disney Movies.

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