In a recent interview with the New York Times, Elijah Wood has discussed how The Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed “in a bubble,” with less scrutiny on the films than there would be today.
The trilogy of epic fantasy movies were filmed simultaneously in New Zealand over the course of around eighteen months. Wood describes how there wasn’t that much oversight from the production company, giving Jackson a lot of freedom; “There was a great sense of a lack of oversight. Peter and the larger team were allowed to make the movies the way that they wanted to make them without much outside perspective. That doesn’t mean the studio wasn’t afraid or invested. They knew the risk of making these films back to back. I don’t know if he would be able to make them in the same way now.”
Wood also thinks that the internet today would make a big difference; “Look, the internet’s different too. There was less scrutiny on the films. There was less known about them. We were able to make the movies in a bubble.”
He continues; “We had quaint problems, like there would be some photographers up on a hill, but it was pretty minor. [Laughs.] I don’t know if that would be possible now. Now the world is online and there’s a great deal of access afforded to pretty much anybody about anything.”
Having said that, very little is currently known about The Lord of the Rings TV series that is coming from Amazon. And there certainly haven’t been set photos or anything of that nature popping up. Amazon have released one official image and that’s been our lot, so far. We will have to wait until September 2022 to find out, including which characters are even in the prequel show.
While we wait for The Lord of the Rings series, check out our guide to the best fantasy movies.