Lord of the Rings has a fairly small universe in a world where other franchises have bigger universes. The main reason behind this is that many projects of the franchise were scrapped for reason or the other. We take a brief look on the projects and the reasons behind their scrapings.
THE PROJECTS
- Disney’s Lord of the Rings: It is said that Walt Disney at one point of time was interested in making an animation version of The Hobbit but the project never happened as Walt later thought that the story lacked humor.
- Zimmerman Treatment: Morton Grady Zimmerman had tried to write a screenplay of the novel of Tolkien and had written 55 pages but the project never got underway due to the lack of a producer.
- Lord of the Rings Starring Beatles: The famous Beatles groups had also wanted to be part of LOTR and were in negotiations with Stanley Kubrick for a movie but the movie never happened for reasons unknown.
- The Lord of the Rings: Journey to Rivendell: The Parker Brothers had thought of this game and wanted it to release it in 1983 but they could never complete the game.
- The Lord of the Rings for The Sega Genesis: This was a game that was intended to release on the Sega Genesis but got cancelled eventually.
- The Lord of the Rings: The White Council: This was a game that EA wanted to release in 2007 but they did not to favor other games as LOTR did not have a big fan base.
- Gene Deitch’s The Hobbit: William L. Snyder wanted to make an animation film on the book in 1961 but production took so long that all was made was an 11 minute video.
- John Boorman’s Arthurian Adaptation: Director John Boorman had written a 178-page long screenplay for the LOTR film but clumsy plot ensured that it never got made.
- Untitled “The Hobbit” game: This was a game developed by Traveller’s Tale. They had invested $1 million in it but then Warner Brothers vetoed it out of existence.
- The New Shadow: Tolkien had thought of this book as the sequel to the Return of the King in 1955. Tolkien wrote 13 pages of it and then left it saying it was “not worth doing”.
These are all the canceled projects of LOTR. Which one do you think could have been worth watching, reading or playing if it was made?
