4. The Lord Of The Rings Was Almost Two Films
The Films You Know: A series that managed to get 30 Oscar nominations, with 17 wins, The Lord Of The Rings are films universally adored, disliked only by those who are yet to park themselves down and experience nine hours of untempered fantasy brilliance. They were a beautiful melding of classical effects and CGI that took in almost three billion dollars at the box office and regarded as some of the best fantasy films of all time. Yeah, the trilogy was pretty massive.
The Films That Almost Happened: The Lord Of The Rings Duology just doesn't have the same ring does it? Well thats what almost happened. When the idea of adapting Tolkiens massive tome was proposed, rights owners Mirimax were only prepared to finance two films, one for Fellowship and The Tower Towers combined and one for Return Of The King. Things got worse when they had money troubles and it was suggested the two films became one, with Helms Deep cut and Rohan and Gondor merged. Thankfully, Peter Jackson had the nonce to jump ship and went to New Line with the two films. Even more thankfully, they suggested keeping the story as it was published, much to future audiences glee.