New Book: 'The Frodo Franchise' - Xoanon @ 17:42 PST
The University of California Press is pleased to announce the publication of: The Frodo Franchise: "The Lord of the Rings" and Modern Hollywood

Kristin Thompson is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her many books include "Film Art: An Introduction" and "Film History: An Introduction" (both with David Bordwell) and "Storytelling in the New Hollywood".

"This is the best all-around view of the Tolkien phenomenon. Thompson understands the books, she understands the movies-she also understands the money and the franchising. Best of all, she understands the people. Thompson offers cultural criticism of the highest order, examining one of the most significant shifts in contemporary popular media."-Tom Shippey, author of "The Road to Middle-earth"

"Once in a lifetime." The phrase comes up over and over from the people who worked on Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings'. The film's seventeen Oscars, record-setting earnings, huge fan base, and hundreds of ancillary products attest to its importance and to the fact that 'Rings' is far more than a film. Its makers seized a crucial moment in Hollywood-the special effects digital revolution plus the rise of "infotainment" and the Internet-to satisfy the trilogy's fans while fostering a huge new international audience. The resulting franchise of franchises has earned billions of dollars to date with no end in sight. Kristin Thompson interviewed seventy-six people to examine the movie's scripting and design and the new technologies deployed to produce the films, video games, and DVDs. She demonstrates the impact 'Rings' had on the companies that made it, on the fantasy genre, on New Zealand, and on independent cinema. In fast-paced, compulsively readable prose, she affirms Jackson's 'Rings' as one the most important films ever made.

Full information about the book, including the table of contents, is available online: go.ucpress.edu