11 Unmade Movie Adapatations That Were Just Weird

Peter Jackson’s fight to get his Lord Of The Rings adaptation off the ground is movie-worthy (or at least one-off TV drama worthy) in itself, not least because of what could have happened if he hadn’t dared to dream, push the envelope, and lie to get the job done.

Originally, negotiations with Miramax came to a point where Jackson was given a month to find a studio to finance the movies, or be removed from the project. And Miramax’s plans for the trilogy would have been bold to say the least, with rumours that their sights were set on Quentin Tarantino to direct.

Jackson had pitched a two-film treatment, but being of the opinion that fantasy films weren’t profitable enough, executive producer Bob Weinstein hit back with a one film treatment, wanting to condense 1,243 pages of book into one two-hour movie. Another one of those times where hindsight makes something hilarious, considering that the extended versions of the Peter Jackson movies run for more than eleven hours, and still don’t include everything from the books.

Among Weinstein’s suggested changes were cutting Bree and Helm’s Deep, “using or losing” Saruman, and merging Rohan and Gondor into one location. Which certainly would have made the scene where Gondor calls for aid much simpler. He also ordered that “We’ve got to kill one of those Hobbits”, presumably to add a sense of drama, and something that Tarantino probably would have agreed to with gusto.