“Too many endings, man!” That was Jack Nicholson’s blunt response to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King—as recounted by Frodo himself. Elijah Wood encountered the legendary actor backstage on the Golden Globes in 2004, when the third movie in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic was on the marketing campaign path for the upcoming Academy Awards. The trio of flicks, which started with The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001, continued with The Two Towers in 2002, and concluded with the finale in 2003, had been an unspeakably high-stakes gamble, with a bank-breaking $281 million finances, a back-breaking filming and postproduction tempo in New Zealand, and cutting-edge visible results, like Andy Serkis’s efficiency seize of Gollum, that had by no means earlier than been tried on such a grand scale.
The danger had paid off: ring-a-ding-ding. Not solely did the trilogy pull in colossal international field workplace returns of greater than $2.9 billion, however it cleared a path for twenty years of episodic epics, from Game of Thrones on tv to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in theaters and numerous wannabes and imitators. Long earlier than that, nevertheless, in early 2004, The Lord of the Rings was on the hunt for the last word business recognition on the Oscars—and the groundbreaking trilogy was getting its chops damaged over its perceived litany of crescendos and culminations.
“I was backstage at the Golden Globes, and Jack Nicholson’s backstage, and he starts talking to me about Lord of the Rings,” Wood recounted in an interview for the movie’s DVD launch. “And he’s like, ‘Did you die?’ And I said, ‘Well, yeah, I mean, it sort of depends on how you look at it, with him going away to the Undying Lands at the end.’ And he’s like, ‘What are you talking about? I left a half an hour before that…. Too many endings, man! Should have ended it a lot sooner than that.’”
Was this pronouncement by the good Nicholson, the elder statesman of Academy cool, a harbinger of doom for Return of the King’s Oscar hopes? It gained greatest drama that evening on the Globes, in addition to greatest director for Jackson, however the studio behind the trilogy, New Line Cinema, feared that sorcery, elves, and the geopolitics of historic mystical realms won’t resonate with the extra erudite members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Fellowship had gotten 13 nominations however solely gained 4—cinematography, make-up, rating, and visible results. Towers had obtained simply six nods, profitable for sound enhancing and visible results. Each had been in competition for greatest image, however the honor had to this point eluded the franchise. Some feared it was merely out of attain.
“The biggest problem––and this started with Fellowship––was we had the dreaded F-word,” Russell Schwartz, New Line’s president of theatrical advertising and marketing on the time, advised Vanity Fair in 2014. “We were the fantasy movie, and there was no fantasy movie that ever won for best picture.”
Even earlier than the start of awards season, Oscar pundits had been projecting Return because the Oscar front-runner. Then the National Board of Review, which usually kicks off awards season in early December with its best-film announcement, gave its prime prize to the Clint Eastwood–directed crime drama Mystic River, which was additionally racking up appearing honors for star Sean Penn and supporting actor Tim Robbins. Return was nonetheless favored because the film to beat, however it was not an unassailable best-picture juggernaut like Schindler’s List or Titanic. Director Peter Weir’s seafaring drama, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, starring Russell Crowe, was additionally a darkish horse contender.
The film’s ensemble of actors reunited repeatedly for post-screening Q&As to speak about making not solely Return, however the entire saga, since manufacturing for all three had been mixed. New Line and its awards strategists sought to emphasise the Herculean enterprise of the whole enterprise. As for the problem of the endings, the marketing campaign addressed that by emphasizing the deep connection moviegoers needed to the saga’s characters. “What we were able to do was have the humanity of the film land. It was very emotional, you know?” says Christina Kounelias, who was then the chief vp of promoting for New Line. “It’s like, Look at the humanity, the people coming together, the hardship, endurance, perseverance. The symbolism is very rich. It’s challenging in and of itself to wrap up those endings. After three films, I think there was tremendous investment from the fan base, and people were committed to seeing the fates of each of the characters.”
The consequence was a number one 11 nominations for The Return of the King, out of 17 eligible classes. There have been no appearing honors for its performers, however it was represented in practically each different relevant class apart from sound enhancing and cinematography. Right behind it was Master and Commander, with 10 nods. Among the opposite best-picture hopefuls, Seabiscuit and Cold Mountain have been shut behind with seven nominations, and Mystic River got here up with six.
Carol Marshall, Jackson’s longtime private publicist, stated that even on Oscar day, the filmmaker was nonetheless harboring doubts, proper up to date he entered the Hollywood theater. “The one thing Peter said to me when I left him on the red carpet at the end—he looked at me and goes, ‘You really think this is gonna happen or no?’ I said, ‘I’ll see you backstage—during the show.’ I had more confidence than he did.”
The ribbing Jackson had repeatedly endured concerning the multitiered conclusion of his movie continued throughout the Oscar telecast itself. “Lord of the Rings, with 11 nominations,” host Billy Crystal stated in his opening monologue. “One for each ending.”
The present opened with a montage wherein Crystal was digitally added to the most important hits of the 12 months—using on the again of Seabiscuit, flirting with Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, and getting kidnapped in Mystic River. Return of the King was spoofed repeatedly, and in the long run Nicholson himself turned up for a cameo, sporting his signature black shades and the luminous white robes of the wizard Gandalf.
After Catherine Zeta-Jones introduced the primary award of the night to Robbins for his supporting flip in Mystic River, Angelina Jolie took the stage to announce the second class: artwork course (now referred to as manufacturing design). “And the Oscar goes to,” she stated, opening the envelope, “…The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.”