The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood

"Once in a lifetime." The phrase comes up over and over from the people who worked on Peter Jackson's *The Lord of the Rings.* The film's seventeen Oscars, record-setting earnings, huge fan base, and hundreds of ancillary products attest to its importance and to the fact that *Rings* is far more than a film. Its makers seized a crucial moment in Hollywood-the special effects digital revolution plus the rise of "infotainment" and the Internet-to satisfy the trilogy's fans while fostering a huge new international audience. The resulting franchise of franchises has earned billions of dollars to date with no end in sight. Kristin Thompson interviewed seventy-six people to examine the movie's scripting and design and the new technologies deployed to produce the films, video games, and DVDs. She demonstrates the impact *Rings* had on the companies that made it, on the fantasy genre, on New Zealand, and on independent cinema. In fast-paced, compulsively readable prose, she affirms Jackson's *Rings* as one the most important films ever made.