All language subtitles for Icons.Unearthed.S07E04.Wizards.at.Work.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BTN_track4_[eng]

The unexpected
global success

of the Fellowship
of the Ring...

It just pierced
pop consciousness.

...had fans and critics

putting to bed the idea that
Tolkien's sprawling trilogy

couldn't be translated
onto the silver screen.

Everyone was saying,
"This is exactly
what I wanted it to be."

But was everybody
getting ahead of themselves?

What do you suppose that means?

After all,
there were two more
in the trilogy.

Two halflings.

Not halflings, films.

The two towers.
The return of the king.

The question was,

would The Fellowship
of the Ring be
a one-hit wonder?

Can they do it again?

And then again, again.

Yes. I wish that.

There was always a concern
about keeping the stakes high

and keeping people interested.

And so Peter Jackson
put his faith in Weta Digital

to take The Two Towersand Return of the King

to a whole new level.

They were really, really
under pressure.

And they're gonna actually
make you feel like

you're living in this world
more than before.

But as the number
of visual-effect shots grew

from hundreds into thousands...

Gollum, Helm's Deep.

You've got Orcs and trolls,
Mumakil, horses,

so many visual effects.

Just the volume of the effects
were kind of overwhelming.

Despite groundbreaking
home-grown innovations...

We can push a button

and these little characters

will go and fight each other.

...the only thing more dramatic

than the effects on screen

was the drama behind the scenes
at Weta Digital.

Evil kind of backstabby
kind of poison.

Turned out that about half
of them were gonna leave.

It became clear

to Peter and Fran

that they had
to make a change.

When does it finish?
When do we see...

When do I see
if I'm gonna be sued?

[John Gilbert] Weta Digital was
a visual-effects facility

in Wellington which got
its start

in Heavenly Creaturesby Peter.

A fairly small group of guys.

[Alley] From this, you know,
garage, you know,

with a few computers...
Yeah, kind of insane.

Being located in New Zealand,
sort of isolated,

they needed to do a lot
of that CGI work on their own.

They didn't have access
to Industrial Light & Magic

or any of the other
big Hollywood
special-effects companies.

But for Peter,
it wasn't just about
physical distance,

it was about being able
to control his vision.

Peter wanted to have control
on every single aspect

of the production process.

However, at this point,

Peter Jackson wasn't
a movie-making machine.

It got really hard at times,

and there were periods
that were very difficult.

Between movies,
it was swords and sandals

that kept the lights on
in Wellington,

thanks to long-running TV
series Xena and Hercules,

both shot in New Zealand.

They learned
from Hercules and Xena.

Things had to get done
and done fast and...

Everything had to be as perfect
as you could get it.

For Jackson's next

feature, The Frighteners...

Weta would need to stretch.

The Frighteners had a lot
of visual effects in it.

[Foot] You know, we needed
to up our game.

A lot more people involved.

Beyond New Zealand,

beyond even Hollywood,
and all the way to New York.

Take one.
Hi, I'm Charlie McClellan,

and I came down to New Zealand
on The Frighteners.

Charlie's initiation
into New Zealand culture

came with its own
frightening experience.

When I first stepped
off the plane

and onto my first film set,

there was these two
long-haired guys,

no shoes, coming up the hill
carrying sandbags and sticks.

It was the director and the DP.

I realized that, as far
as the film-making process,

it was really
an all-hands-on-deck
kind of mind frame.

Charlie
was no computer whiz,

but he knew how
to streamline operations.

I was basically
the post-production supervisor.

I didn't really know anything
about visual effects
and didn't really have

a particular interest
in computer effects.

As we started working,
it became more clear

that the visual-effects
side of it needed
shape and management.

Peter basically just said,
"Charlie, kind of go that way."

The Frightenersfailed to land
gracefully with audiences.

The Frighteners belly-flopped.

- Son of a bitch!
- Oh!

But thanks to Weta's effects,

the company named after
a New Zealand native insect

was getting noticed
in Hollywood

with executive producer
Robert Zemeckis hiring

Weta Digital again
in 1997 for his film, Contact.

Whatever it is,
it ain't local.

But another project was.

It just happened to be

the biggest movie project
in history,

and Weta Digital was
completely unprepared.

The creating process was one
where we had to basically go

from 40 people to 250 people
within a matter of 6 months.

It was clearly ambitious
and, maybe even at that stage,

a little bit outside
of our realm of possibility.

If Weta had doubts,

Lord of the Rings' backers
in New Line Cinema

had serious concerns.

New Line was worried about Weta,

about their capacity
to deliver.

We're just these kids, really,

from the other side
of the planet going,

"Yeah, we think we can...
we think we can do this."

Unfortunately for New Line,

Peter Jackson's deal with them
meant that Weta Digital

were a lock to complete
all the visual effects.

And with Auckland, New Zealand,

6,500 miles away
from Hollywood,

there was not a lot that
New Line could do about it,

except hope for the best.

Weta expanded rapidly,

so much so, it was starting
to step on some powerful toes.

We had designed all
of our rendering

to be done in RenderMan,

basically which was
a Pixar product.

We had just put in
a purchase order for, uh,

I think it was 500
RenderMan licenses.

The phone rang
and it was the woman
from Pixar...

...and she was saying
that Steve was
really angry at me...

This is Steve Jobs, for trying
to steal his employees.

And that they're not gonna
sell us RenderMan.

And I was like, "What?
You can't do that."

The next thing I know,
I'm talking to Steve Jobs,

and he's calling me a punk
and he's saying, you know,

trying to steal his people
and blah, blah, blah,

kicking this punk down
in New Zealand.

And I was literally just holding
the phone away from my ear

and just going,
"This is not happening."

Even with all
the software in the world,

Weta would have to go fast
and grow fast at the same time.

A lot of the production
pipelines

were still being worked out

and there was a lot of inventing
how we were gonna do this.

One of those inventions

would come from a man
who had been pondering

a problem in visual effects
since The Frighteners.

I was a technical director
on The Frighteners.

I created some software
for various things

that couldn't be done

with off-the-shelf software
at the time.

So when we had a wrap party
for The Frighteners,

Peter asked me
if I'd be interested

in putting together
a crowd system.

Meaning
a computer-generated crowd

far exceeding the capabilities
of living, breathing humans.

To do these giant
battle scenes, you know,
they couldn't get

that many extras, um,
because that would be

an insurmountable amount
of people.

Doing it
with computers was
only half the solution.

I've got a $40,000 computer

and yet, I'm laboriously
posing this character,

almost frame by frame,

and I thought,
"There's got to be
another way to do this."

For Stephen,
the dream solution arrived,

conveniently enough,
in a dream.

I had a dream about this
where I came to work one day,

and there was these guys
from somewhere else.

He means aliens.

[Regelous] And they were showing
off their system,

and the system had, like,
a forest in it and animals

and all kinds of things
were running around.

It was all real time,
and they were all alive.

They each had a little brain

and they were each interacting
and responding

to what they could see
and hear and feel.

And I asked them how it worked,
and they showed me.

And it was this
connections of nodes for brains

and that was my vision
from there.

The guys in that dream
showed me how to do it.

The resulting software
was christened Massive.

[Regelous] I spent
two years making it,

and then I took it
along to Weta.

We did a test simulation.

What they were seeing
was only stick figures,

but they were stick figures
with brains.

And we can push a button,

and these little characters
will go and fight each other.

Stephen's
little blue men
may have had brains,

but they weren't making
the best decisions.

Stephen would do
his crowd simulations,

and he would drop his characters
onto the landscape

and instead of going
and fighting each other,

they'd all turn around
and run the other direction.

They had
to reprogram the software

because there were too many
of the Massive guys

looking to go,
"This is not worth it,
I'm running away."

So all I had to do was put
in another rule that said,

"If you can't see any enemies,
turn around."

Although it wasn't
a quick process...

[McClellan] To get it
to actually work
took years and years.

And so, that was a long process.

But there was one
Lord of the Rings character

whose birth would turn Weta
into a household name.

And his arrival was going to be
a very difficult labor.

With humanesque and humanoid
characters like Gollum,

we always thought that we would
get a much more believable,

and perhaps, a high throughput
result by using motion capture.

And the motion capture that
we were getting back then

was very rudimentary.

You know, cutting edge
for its time, but it was buggy,

it was unwieldy,
it was difficult

to kind of get that motion data
out and into something that

normal artists who deal
with a model

can put together
and make sense of.

And so a lot of times,
you were trying to simplify
the camera moves

so that the unwieldy
motion-capture data

that comes in can be made sense
of in a clean and simple way.

The developing technology

had the potential
to be scarily good

and that was scaring its users.

[McClellan] There was
a great schism

between the animators
and the motion-capture people.

You could see
that the animators were thinking

that their jobs were gonna be
threatened in the long term.

From my point of view,
it was always gonna be

a marriage between the two.

We were gonna need to take
the best of everything

that all of it had
to offer and use it
as could be afforded.

Things started
to come together.

[McClellan] The Massive
animation software

was starting to work,

the Fell beasts were
starting to flap their wings

and look evil.

So you could start to see
the early stages

of the possibility of it.

But cracking the code

to create animated creatures
was proving easier

than managing the people
doing it.

[McClellan] There wasn't
a huge amount of people

working on the management side
of things.

John Sheils was
the digital effects producer.

Jon Labrie was
the chief technical officer.

So the three of us were

kind of the main people
running the company.

I feel like I was sort of
the general manager,

the visual effects producer,

the human resources,
lead shrink,
lead legal counsel.

And for Charlie,

it was all becoming too much,

especially on New Line's
tight budget.

You literally were drip-fed
every step of the way.

It was a very tight leash.

And very stressful
because this was like

a high-stakes financial gamble

that everybody was kind of
immersed in.

But the leash was
becoming so tight,

management could
hardly breathe.

And Weta was about to choke.

[Osborne] Fran came to me
and said that

one of the key people
at Weta was going to resign.

Lord of the Ringsproducer, Barrie Osborne,
had a problem.

Weta Digital seemed to be
shooting itself in the foot.

[Osborne] Fran came to me
and said that

one of the key people at Weta
was going to resign,

and his name's Jon Labrie.

So I called Jon and said,
"Jon, why are you leaving Weta?"

He said, "Well,
I'm the chief technical officer,

"and I've designed the pipelines
and put them all into place

"and I think I've done the job
I was hired to do."

But it was clear to me
he was holding back,

and I found out that there was
a lot of dysfunction at Weta.

This was a problem
that Barrie needed to solve

with good old
analog technology.

We put a big white board up
and we said,

"Okay, here are the functions
that needed to be done."

And we asked Charlie
to designate

who was doing each
of these functions.

And Charlie said
he was doing all of them.

And then it got a little bit,
um, contentious

between Charlie and Jon Labrie,

and there were a lot of people
that were gonna leave.

A mass desertion
was threatening

to stop The Lord of the Ringsin its tracks.

So big changes were made
regarding John Sheils

and Charlie McClellan.

They were both inexperienced
on a film of this scale.

And it wasn't really that.

I think they both may have
been able to do the job,

but they were very arrogant.

Well, you know, for me,
it was not instantly

kind of accepted
as being the,

um, solution to our problems.
There was a lot of resistance.

Charlie and Jon
were shown the door.

To be honest,
a lot of the things
that challenged me

were probably just my own
naive dreams and hopes

that it could be
a different way.

That kind of rot and evil
kind of, uh, backstabby

kind of poison,
that will infect
any company

that gets to a certain size,
let's face it.

So I got into the business
to learn how to make movies,

and I never got into it
to be a manager
of hundreds of people.

[Osborne] I was lucky
to get Joe Letteri

to run Weta,
and he's still with the company,

and he's partnering now
in the company,

and he's done a great job.

And then, we also hired
Eileen Moran.

She was a good person
to smooth things over

and to run the company,
and it was...

really worked successfully.

Weta now
had the software
and the management.

But many of its new staff
understood code

more than they did cameras.

I realized that they didn't
understand my film talk.

You know,
a computer guy saying,

"How do I get that and that
in the frame?"

I would say, "Oh, jib down."
"What are you talking about?"

So I took them
to a group workshop,

and I put them on dollies
and cranes and showed them,

"This is what happens
when the camera
actually moves, you know.

"And you've gotta try
and replicate this feel."

But it wasn't
all doom and gloom.

The motion-capture issues
that plagued Charlie McClellan

had been fixed.

Meaning this could now
be transformed into this.

What Weta was doing felt like

it was miles ahead
of everybody else.

Master's my friend.

Some of Gollum's
most memorable moments

owed little to Tolkien's book.

You don't have any friends.

Not listening.

And this scene
owed little

to even Peter Jackson.

So in the first iconic scene

where Smeagol
is talking to himself,

it's actually directed
by Fran.

Wicked, tricksy, false!

That part is not even
in the books.

That is something created
by Fran and Philippa and Peter

and it just adds
so much more dimension

to the internal struggle
of the character of Smeagol.

Despite all
the computer trickery,

Gollum's struggle could not
have been more human.

[McWeeny] He was
a real performance.

This thing that obviously
came out of a computer,

but it had a soul
and you were moved by it.

That was thanks
to the talents
of a one-man "Serkis."

Well, Andy Serkis was
a theater actor,

and he was like
a Shakespearian, like,
theater actor.

Who nearly
didn't take the role.

His mate told him in London,

"Dude, I would not touch that."

'Cause nobody had
really kind of heard
of Peter Jackson

besides Heavenly Creatures,

and unless you were
in the indie-film scene,

nobody kinda knew who he was.

But that
didn't stop Andy,

who agreed to give
Gollum a unique
and unmistakable voice.

Master betrayed us.

It hurts.

Andy just thought
he was gonna just get
into a recording booth,

say some lines
and that'd be it.

Once he comes down
and sees the technology,

he basically volunteered

to give performances on set
for the actors.

Andy didn't hold back

in throwing himself
into the role.

The scenes when Gollum
is actually, you know,

throwing himself down that
river, getting a fish,

I was on set for that day
and he actually
did throw himself

down the river to get
to that fish.

And it was amazing
he didn't hurt himself.

Funnily enough,
Andy wasn't precious.

That was the beginning
of that lifelong journey

that Andy has undertaken.

And his heroics
benefited more than Gollum.

And it was something
to photograph, you know?

That's one side of it.
And then the actors

had someone to play with.

Elijah and Gollum
were actually there,

in the room together,
for all intents and purposes.

And so what they would do
is they would do a Gollum pass

where they would shoot the scene
with Andy for the actors.

And then they would go back,
take him out,

and he would just say
the lines off-set.

It was such a process
that Andy's agent

probably should've asked
for triple the fee.

Everything he did
had to be done
three times.

He had to do it on the set
and then he had to come back

and do more intricate capture
for the CG

and then he had
to do it again for ADR,

as many actors have to do,
but he had to do it
for everything.

But for Weta's warlocks,

it was hardly enough time
to digitally develop

what Andy Serkis
had given them.

I'm sure there was a lot
of pressure on them.

It was still a lot of work
to put elements

into those shots
and to final them.

In the depths of Mordor...

Sorry not Mordor,
Miramar, Wellington,

Weta Digital,
after a sneak peek

of Gollum
in Fellowship of the Ring,

were busy preparing
for his full-scale debut

in The Two Towers.

Well, obviously, Gollum
was figured in the second

and third films
in a much bigger way.

Meanwhile, Peter
was a little bit distracted,

looking backwards
rather than forwards,

thanks to the success of
The Fellowship of the Ring.

He was able to get additional
funding for the DVD versions,

which are his preferred
versions.

So Peter decided
to put the finishing touches

on the film
that was already finished.

They were able to re-look
at stuff and go,

"Hey, we can actually
make this better."

There were list men
throughout the shooting time.

The script supervisor keeps
a list from Peter

of things that they felt
needed to be re-shot

or pick-ups that needed
to be added in.

Additions such as
the extended introduction

of hobbits
at the beginning of the film.

[Bilbo] Hobbits have been
living and farming

in the four Farthings
of the Shire

for many hundreds of years.

And then there was
the lengthening

of Galadriel's gift scene

to include other members
of the fellowship.

[Galadriel] And for you,
Samwise Gamgee,

elven rope made of hithlain.

There was also
a humorous addition

as Sam listened to the elves
lament Gandalf's demise.

The finest rockets ever seen.

They burst in stars
of blue and green.

That doesn't do them justice
by a long road.

And to help
the poetry go down,

a touch of a cappella
from Aragorn.

Who is she?

All inserted
on Jackson's whim.

But Peter's desire to perfect
his work in progress

was seriously
impacting progress

on part two of the trilogy.

The Two Towers was already
undershot and behind schedule.

Six months'
worth of pick-ups.

[Bennett] The flashback scene
in The Two Towers

with Boromir heading off
to Rivendell,

that was not originally there.

So they did bring Sean Bean in
to do those reshoots.

This city was once the jewel
of our kingdom!

[Bennett] The Witch-King,
they had a new helmet design,

so that was also a pick-up shot.

With time ticking away,

New Line attempted to exert
some dominance.

[Osborne] Then there was
the question of where
we were gonna dub the film.

New Line said we can't dub
the film in New Zealand,

that we have to go
to Australia.

Australia has
all the better equipment

and all the latest technology

and New Zealand doesn't
have anything.

And Peter obviously
didn't want to do that.

I said, "Why don't we have
our mixers

"go over to Australia,

"and then come back
and look at New Zealand?

"And let's weigh up
the pros and cons."

Suddenly,
Barrie had a mutiny
on his hands.

[Osborne] New Line
post supervisor

is saying that if we don't vote
to do it in Australia,

we'll never work again.

So I just blew up,
and we ultimately prevailed.

And as the premiere

for The Two Towerscame closer,

more audio problems presented
themselves about orcs.

I'm gonna rip off
your filthy little heads!

They were literally
a day and a half away
from the premiere

and they realized they had
to ADR these characters.

We were in New Zealand.

To get us on a plane
to get us to the UK,

we wouldn't have got there
in time.

Come here!

This scene
in the Fangorn Forest

needed several new voices.

Let's put a maggot hole
in your belly.

But there was only
one man for the job.

[Brophy] Andy was in the booth.

Yeah, he did
all seven characters.

With a little help, of course.

[Brophy] Well, I did
the voice down the line

and then he was able
to mimic that.

Of all the people to do it,
though, he was the one.

There wouldn't be a better
voice actor on the planet.

The Two Towersentered cinemas
on December 18, 2002.

When Two Towers came out,
I was already blown away
by the first one,

so I was very much
expecting it
to be beautiful.

[McWeeny] It ramped
things up to even

a different level of,
I think, response and mania.

And on top of that,
the Battle of Helm's Deep,

which if you saw that
in a movie theater
with an audience,

that was a rock concert.

That was just awesome
to sit through.

But as you'll remember,

the battle to make
the Battle of Helm's Deep

was an intense struggle
unto itself.

The worst, most difficult
impossible shoot

that anyone's ever done.

Yeah, I definitely felt a sense
of pride for that.

[Busch] Everybody
who's tried to imitate it
hasn't done as well,

like Game of Thrones.

This epic size,
this incredible scale.

When you look at Helm's Deep,
it's not forgetting
who they are.

They don't become cogs
in a machine,

they don't become
just more cannon fodder.

They're still themselves

and each of their qualities
is what helps them
win this battle.

And it showed the world

that Lord of the Ringswas getting better and better

instead of resting
on their laurels.

[McWeeny] It was proof that
they could do this thing.

They could do it twice.
They could turn the stakes up.

They could make it even cooler.

The battle
of Helm's Deep

may have been the centerpiece
of the Two Towers,

but it was
the quieter struggles

of a truly singular character

that really took
their breath away.

I think Gollum was
a different level.

He drove the audience
absolutely crazy.

[Alley] He became
like a digital character

that's actually like a real
living thing,

not just a sort of, you know,
digital puppet

or two-dimensional. It's like,
"Wow, you really feel like
Gollum's there with them."

It was kind of a little...

little kind of a looking glass
into the future

of how we were gonna
create creatures.

The triumph
of the Two Towerswas complete,

but the trilogy still had
its final chapter.

[McWeeny] Which
then set the stage

for a full year of,
"Oh, my God.

"Is Return of the King
gonna kill us?
Like, is this it?"

The Return
of the King would be
the crown on Hollywood's

most expensive
and groundbreaking trilogy.

There's so much pressure
on Return of the King

to wrap this up perfectly

because the first two
were so good
and so well-received.

Hail the victorious.

Hail!

But would audiences

still care enough
to embrace the last film

three years deep into a very
deep dive of Tolkien?

There was always a concern
about keeping the stakes high

and keeping people interested.

Peter and Fran considered

how to conclude their epic.

End of Two Towers
and beginning
of Return of the King

was always a tricky thing
where they were
constantly debating,

"Does this material belong here?
Does it belong here?

"Does it go in any movie?"

There's so many things

that just dramatically
kept moving,

involving the breaking points
of these films.

With one year
until the final release,

Peter Jackson was running
out of runway

to bring his magnum opus
in to land.

[Peter swords King] God,
I don't think he ever thinks
anything's finished, really.

There's always other stuff
he wants to do,

another idea. "Oh, we can
do something better.

"Oh, can we just quickly
reshoot that?"

All the time.
Right up until the last day.

But The Lord of the Ringswas no longer

something its
perfectionist director

could control completely.

Stars like Liv Tyler started
to flex their muscles,

or at least their lips.

Yeah, the Aragorn
and Arwen kiss was...

She was supposed to kiss
a stunt double

because he had already been
wrapped for the day.

And then Liv was like,
"But he's...

"but Viggo's, like, my guy.

"I need... I don't want to
kiss a stunt double."

So they got Viggo to come back
so they could kiss.

And it's a great kiss,
by the way.

But she was very sad

that they actually thought
it was gonna be fine

because he had the full beard.

And "Who's gonna know?
It's just a kiss."

Oh, you'd be
surprised what people notice.

For some in the audience,

their eyes were firmly drawn

to the smooth, fine features

of one particular elf.

From the first film,

there's a young Kiwi chap
whose name I should remember.

Here's a reminder.

There's this quite pretty
elven character

who had two seconds on screen.

The guy on the right.

If you watch it on a plane,
he's not in the movie at all.

He gets framed out for
the square monitors there.

He was just playing an elf,
an unnamed elf.

Nonetheless,
this unnamed elf

would not remain anonymous
for long.

Turns out it was Bret McKenzie
from Flight of the Conchords.

Bret McKenzie.

But the musical comedy duo

were virtually unknown in 2001.

So the Internet
went right ahead

and christened
its favorite elf.

Fans had picked up
on this particular character

and given him a name.

In the fan base,
he'd become a whole...

more of a character.

He was named Figwit,

from the acronym,
"Frodo is great, who is that?"

And they made, like,
this joke website

and then someone else made
another website

and then another one,
another one, another one.

Figwit
was going viral

and taking The Lord
of the Rings with him.

[Alley] It was this
really cool, like,
early Internet communities

coming together and making
something that was theirs

that became, you know,
part of the Lord
of the Rings folklore

to the point where,
in The Return of the King,

they actually cast
Bret McKenzie
with a speaking role.

We cannot delay.

My lady!

It was really cool to see

that, you know, the fans

could actually influence
the final product

and, you know, really be part
of that shared culture.

But to really
satisfy the fans,

Peter needed The Return
of the King's main event,

the final battle over the ring,
to be massive.

It was time to deploy
his not-so-secret weapon.

The Massive department.

The team
of computer animators

using Stephen's
Massive software

for the trilogy's
most massive battle.

Two hundred thousand agents.

Agents meaning
computer-animated combatants.

The Riders of Rohan, 50,000,
coming down the hill.

They wanted them to form,
like, a wedge.

Rather than constrain them
to a wedge, we thought,

"Let's get them to make
the wedge themselves."

To make that happen,
the Massive software

issued the army's
marching orders by code.

[Regelous] So each rider had a rule
that told them,

"If you're
on the right of Theoden,

"then you want to lag behind
the guy who's on your left.

"And if you're
on the left of him,

"you want to lag
behind the guy
who's on your right."

So that they naturally formed
this wedge.

I mean, I don't mean to sound
like I'm blowing my trumpet...

Oh, go on.

...but it looked fantastic.

[Osborne] We just had
this big white field

with all this fighting,

but you knew that

your actors were central,

so you'd focus on the cast
as well as the action.

On this, the final stage,

the key players would have
their defining moments

with a hobbit...

I didn't think
it would end this way.

...wizard...

That is just another past.

- ...dwarf...
- ...the best dwarf win.

...or man...

- Galadriel, please!
- ...or woman...

...and, of course, the elves.

They wanted to add, like,
a grander Legolas fight

for The Return of the Kingthan The Two Towers.

And so that's where
the oliphaunt
kind of segment came in.

But by 2003,

the success of Ringshad made its cast in demand.

Barrie had a problem.

We had a problem with Orlando
because he was in Troy,

and they didn't want to release
Orlando to us.

That was a problem.

Thankfully, I had a good friend
that was on Troy,

and it was clear to both of us

that it wouldn't conflict
with Troy at all.

He could release him,

and we could get him

back to their film
without a problem.

That's how
Orlando Bloom ended up back

on The Lord of the Rings'conveyor belt.

For the slide down the trunk,
he was on a conveyor belt.

And he's sort of like, "Whoop"
and hopped off at the end.

But it looked kind of cool
and it was kind of a nice

sort of call back to the surfing
down the stairs on the shield.

Peter Jackson
continued to pursue

every opportunity to perfect
the finishing touches

on his master work,

making so many
last-minute changes,

only he knew the score,
even when it came to the score.

[Osborne] I got a call one night
from Howard Shore,

the composer,
and he was in despair.

He said, "I just walked off
of the scoring stage

and Peter came over to me
and said,

"He had just re-cut
the scene that I scored.

"I have to recompose
the music

"and then go back
to the scoring stage
and re-score it.

"You know how long
that takes me.

"How are we ever
gonna finish the movie?"

Which raised the question,

when would
The Lord of the Ringstrilogy finally end?

Peter didn't want to let go
of the film.

He was so attached to the film,
he didn't want to finish.

With the final premiere date
fast approaching...

The end has come.

...something had to give.

As the final installment
of the Lord of the Ringstrilogy neared completion...

We were right up
against the deadline

- of having to deliver.
- Hurry, hurry.

Barrie Osborne
found he had a big problem...

his director.

Peter didn't want to let go
of the film.

Peter Jackson's obsession
was becoming all-consuming.

The ring is my burden.

Ironically, his dedication

was becoming a burden
to the production.

[Osborne] And when you deliver

a big international film
of this scale,

there are a lot of deals
that are made
with merchandising

and tie-ins,
and all those deals
count on you

delivering the film on time.

And if you don't, you perhaps
sacrifice some of that

and that's a lot of money
at stake.

And obviously, he had to get it
done in advance for us

to be able to dub the film

because we were doing worldwide,

so we had to get it
around the world

and we had to have people
dubbing it, subtitling it.

All that stuff takes time.

So Barrie hatched a plan

that might upset
the apple cart...

Because I think he felt I was
trying to sabotage him.

...in order to save the apples.

In reality,
I was buying him more time

by coming up with this system.

The system
was all about

guaranteeing on-time delivery.

What we did is,
I made a grid.

Rows were the departments
and then columns were reels.

One through, I think, 12. It may
have been even 14 reels.

I can't remember how many reels
it was. It was a long film.

And then we'd have a matrix
and you can say,

"Oh, it looks like
reel five is probably
close to being done."

And so I would say
to everybody,

"Focus all your attention
on completing reel five."

So that we could deliver
reels out of order,

which would let Peter do
whatever he was doing

and buy him new time

and we could still
make our delivery date

because we were able to finish
reels out of sequence.

Barrie's system worked,

and The Return of the Kingwas delivered in time

to premiere in Hollywood.

No, no, scratch that,

in Cannes. Oh, no, no,
wait a minute.

[Tim Gray] Peter Jackson said,
quite rightly,

"We need to premiere this
in New Zealand."

Not just in New
Zealand, but in Wellington,

now often called Wellywood,

the home
of the Lord of the Rings.

It was like a homecoming.
It wasn't just for a film.

It really... It was like
a national event.

It was this pride.

Wellington pretty much closed
down for the premieres.

You know, the red carpet
going down

Courtenay Place
towards the Embassy.

All the stars are there saying
hello and signing autographs

and getting selfies done
and all that.

The last red carpet

seemed as long as the road
that led to it.

A hundred thousand people
in the city
that I worked in,

the longest red carpet
in history

and getting to walk that in
front of a whole lot of people

that I've been a theater actor
in front of,

it doesn't get any better
than that.

Very exciting to be a part of.

It was also beautiful
to watch Peter and Fran

and to see their pride
in everything

they had accomplished
in their home.

We made the movie, but you guys
have given us the party.

And we thank you
very, very much for that.

I've often said to people
if I had to stop
acting tomorrow,

the fact that I got to do that,
I would feel satisfied.

Also satisfied

was The Ring'smany dedicated fans.

When Return of the King came
out, fans were over the moon

because we've invested
for so many years,

we've invested for so many hours
and everything's paid off.

And also, I think
that final scene
where Aragorn says,

"My friends, you bow to no one,"

I still get choked up even
talking about that scene.

You bow to no one.

The Lord
of the Ringstook its final bow.

But was this really the end
of the Lord of the Rings?

The only critique
I remember hearing

is that it had several endings.

I'm okay with that

because everyone's story
doesn't end at the same time.

However
it was deemed to end,

the end result was
a box office smash.

The Return of the Kinghauled in

more than a billion dollars
worldwide.

Credit to Peter,
he kept the intimacy.

He had a way of keeping
the epic scale

of that which is Rings,
humbled in a way that feels

like we've been told
a story at bedtime
by a loved one.

[Mahaffie] The Return of the King

obviously buttoned
not only the story

but the whole journey
for so many of us.

We put a mark in the ground

of what that genre
could attain to.

The fantasy epic
had come of age

with The Lord of the Rings.

But there was
one final accolade

that would confirm
its landmark status.

It's not necessary
that you're the best film

and the other ones are crap.

They're all good films.

It's just that it's the right
time for your...

whatever movie you made.

The 76th Oscars confirmed

The Lord of the Rings' time
had come.

The Lord of the Rings.

- The Lord of the Rings.
- Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings:
The Return of the King.

The Return of the King

brought home a record
equaling 11 Oscars,

including Best Director
for Peter Jackson.

Wow, look, thank you so much for
the Academy and for all our...

You're giving us an incredibly
overwhelming night.

There were
technical wins, too.

It felt fantastic to win
an Academy Award.

I just felt like
I now was special

in the visual-effects
community.

It was just lovely.

And as for Best Picture,

well, finally, Return of
the King took a fantasy film

where no fantasy film
had been before.

Where are we going?

And the Oscar goes to...

It's a clean sweep

for Lord of the Rings:
The Return of the King.

Barrie M. Osborne,
Peter Jackson,

and Fran Walsh, producers.

The Return
of the King had won

in every single category
it was nominated.

It does not belong to one man,
but to all.

"Look at what we all got."

Everyone's sort of looking

at themselves in disbelief.

"What have I just won?
Sorry, what is..."

Keep looking at it and saying,
"Is that really mine?"

For Peter,
Fran and for Barrie,

it had taken three films
and seven years.

But realizing their dream
had changed Hollywood.

Peter went from being
an indie filmmaker

to, like, the next George Lucas.

I don't even think
you can measure the impact

that Lord of the Rings had
on commercial filmmaking.

They were a proof of concept
for so many different things

and so many filmmakers have
taken up the challenge

that Peter Jackson laid down
since then.

I'm so honored, touched
and relieved that the Academy

and the members of the Academy
that have supported us

have seen past the trolls
and the wizards

and the hobbits,
and are recognizing
fantasy this year.

Before Lord of the Rings,
fantasy was very much
a B genre.

When they won
all of those Oscars,

that solidified that genre film
was a valid form of art.

It made people realize
that fantasy wasn't just

a genre on the fringes.

It was mainstream.

It's time to celebrate.

But even with the party

now officially in full swing
and Oscars literally in hand,

Peter Jackson had not finished
with The Lord of the Rings.

Peter Jackson,

despite the accolades
from his peers,

was still, at heart,
a perfectionist.

And he was not done
with The Lord of the Rings.

After he won the Oscars,

he came back
and they were filming

more pick-up shots for the DVD.

He's like, "I'm still shooting
things for a film

"that's already done
and won Oscars.

"And we're still adding
more stuff to it."

The trilogy
had seen technology

finally catch up
with Tolkien's imagination.

Five years prior to us doingLord of the Rings,

the software
and the development of CG

would not have made it possible

to make those films
as authentic as they are.

And then we take the precious
and we'll be the master.

I think Gollum alone
is one of the most influential

film characters of all time

because of the way audiences
connected to him emotionally.

It proved you could do it.

It also proved
that digital effects

were not just a better form
of decoration,

they had a place
at the very center

of motion-picture storytelling.

It could've only have been done
on those three shows

because it was such
a pressure pot.

I think a lot of the technology
that we use today

owes a lot to that time.

The DIY filmmaker
from New Zealand

who once baked his own latex
props in his mother's oven

had helped usher in
a new digital era.

Even though there were big
financial limitations,

from where we were sitting
as Kiwis,

we had the world at our feet.

Peter Jackson turned out to be
the perfect person for it,

even though, you know,
even I was a little skeptical,

uh, when he was
signed to do it.

But, you know, it's a happy
Hollywood ending.

But not for all.

[McWeeny] Lord of the Rings,

creatively,
immeasurably successful.

I think on the financial side,

while we do measure it
as a success,

it is also a success
that broke a studio.

That's right.
Broke a studio.

[McWeeny] New Line
overspent on things

and became a company
that didn't know
what they were anymore.

Because emboldened
by his success

with the Rings' trilogy,

Bob Shaye placed another
$200,000,000 plus bet

on a second hopeful
fantasy franchise.

Is that all?

Whimpering cub.

But The Golden Compass

was pointing
in the wrong direction,

and New Line's losses
proved fatal.

New Line never recovered.
New Line was
never New Line again.

The company
that Freddy built

and hobbits minted
was swallowed.

Warner Bros. acquired New Line.

But the story
of Bob Shaye's
renegade company

and Tolkien's hobbits
was not over yet.

In fact, it was just beginning.

There's room for a little more.

However, the story
New Line was telling

did seem a little fishy.

New Line was creating
this narrative.

"We didn't make a profit."

Creative bookkeeping.

[McWeeny] There were
a lot of losses.

So many lawsuits were filed.
There were so many problems.

There were so many people
who wanted a piece

of that enormous pie
that was generated.

The difference between
what they said they'd sold

and what they actually
had sold was quite big,

and I think they thought
we would just go away
and they said,

"You're never gonna work
in the industry again.

"You will be blacklisted
forever."