Click to watch on YouTube

On April 7, 2020 the senior members of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings production team came together with fans to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first teaser trailer of LOTR, an online-only digital video that broke all online download records.

This digital trailer, released on Apple Trailers, was responsible for 30% of all internet traffic upon release according to Akamai. It surpassed the Star Wars Episode 1 trailer, arguable the most hyped film in history, in downloads the first day and first week.

Prior to this trailer, fandom was seen as “Star Wars.” This validated fandom and a different way of marketing and appreciating what fandom can bring. It created a different perception of the power of fans.

Gordon Paddison, VP Marketing LOTR

Michael Pellerin describes watching the LOTR trailer with Chairman Roy Disney at Walt Disney Studios, the parent company of Miramax that actually let LOTR walk away to New Line Cinema. “He just went huh, wow, good on them. Disney would have made it a company film. This is more of a visionary thing.”

Richard Taylor tells a heartfelt story of offering a job to a professional make-up artist early on, which was respectfully declined. “We were turned down by almost everyone… but when the trailer came out, a number of people we had pursued actually wrote back to me!”

An early Cinefex advertisement soliciting resumes for Weta Digital c. 1999-2000

“What Michael did under Peter’s leadership was to unpack everything about everything, the whole process. In that trailer the world got to see the first thing that Weta Digital was doing. There was unbelievable groundbreaking stuff being done. It was all so beautifully unfolded for the world.”

Gordon Paddison was New Line Cinema’s VP of Digital Marketing who took a risk engaging with fan sites early on. “Nobody is doing anything bad, its just that they care! That’s how you develop a relationship that lasts 20 years. It comes down to passion. Fans are passionate and I was a champion of the fans, as was everyone on this chat and Peter. A strategy of love is the best you can have.”

“Star Trek had been taking legal action and shutting down fan sites for years. This was the beginning of embracing fandom and we developed a great relationship working with you guys [at TheOneRing.net]. This video changed the velocity & tone of the fan response.”

“Peter was so good at saying very early to the fans that this is not the definitive version of Lord of the Rings, this is my personal impression of what the films should be. It did a lot to right-set the filmmaker vision and set us on a journey that was really humble. “

I have a very in-depth trust in Peter. When he came to us that he wanted to do this trailer, there was no question that it was the right thing to do. I hadn’t seen a trailer like this, so I was surprised that there would be this level of reveal.”

Richard Taylor

Co-Producer Rick Porras describes the unique vision of this first teaser trailer, “What made it special was intercutting the old footage and seeing the filmmaker talk about it. Including Peter [in the video] really started something special.”

A big reveal is that the this teaser trailer actually includes footage of the original pitch package for studios to even make LOTR. Everything with Peter Jackson in a white shirt was part of the pitch package delivered to Miramax, New Line, and all other potential studios. New Line Cinema of course saw the vision and financed the films.

Sasha is a Weta artist who designed the Lord of the Rings logo and typefaces – who also pulled double duty as an orc on stilts.
Jed Brophy is the first actor ever shown officially from LOTR, on Nazgul horseback

“The fans were so engaged. Normally you can hide under a rock for a while. The fans were getting materials and putting them out. From my experience you don’t want to get into a fight with your core market. We had to feed them!” Gordon Paddison acknowledging the fourth estate of filmmaking – the fan community.

Gandalf’s shadow, sent secretly by Ian Mckellen, generated one of the first legal notices the studio sent to TheOneRing.net

Jed Brophy, in addition to playing many orc characters, was a horse rangler on the film and is actually in the teaser trailer as one of the nazgul nine. “It is a pretty incredible thing to see something you’ve done, which is just another day at work.”

Executive Producer Mark Ordesky was fully supportive of Peter & Gordon’s efforts releasing this teaser. “The best way is tell your own story before someone else tells it. What was genius about the trailer is Peter basically showed how he’s going to do things that you can’t possible imagine.”

“Think with hope, not with fear. I have come with answers.”

One of the fun tidbits revealed was that the ringer verse voice over was performed by Nick Tate, who has done everything from Jurassic Park to Spongebob. The Tolkienist was the first to reshare the discovery with fans!

Michael Pellerin expands on the Roy Disney story, confirming that LORD OF THE RINGS was indeed a Disney film at its inception because of the Miramax deal. Miramax was a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, and to this day Harvey Weinstein is credited as Executive Producer on LOTR.

“In April of 2000, I was in NYC in an audio recording session with Roy Disney, for a project I was finishing up with him. I had been counting down the days until the first LOTR online preview was to be released and it just happened to occur while we were in the studio. I tried to be as surreptitious as I could, waiting for the preview to drop on my laptop. But Roy could see I was obviously up to something — probably not having to do with our show. So he asked me what I was doing, and I fessed up to him that the first LOTR preview was about to appear online, and I couldn’t miss it. Instead of reprimanding me, Roy said we should all take a break from the session and watch it together — which we did. 

When it was over, Roy turned to me and was duly impressed. He said he thought Peter and New Line were really going to pull off what many felt was impossible — a motion picture of The Lord of the Rings – and that the project had found the right home, after all, with a director who was clearly a visionary. This was an amazing comment by a man whose progenitors founded the Walt Disney Company, and who himself was one of its chairmen. Especially in light of the fact that  Disney that was the parent company of Miramax, the studio that was originally producing Peter Jackson’s film version of LOTR, before it went into turnaround and ended up as a trilogy of films for New Line Cinema. Technically speaking, Peter Jackson’s LOTR was originally a Disney film, in its inception. So hearing Roy Disney express the same hope and feeling of excitement we all had watching that preview, felt like a sense of closure to a long journey that began in 1997, and was soon to make cinematic history.”

TheOneRing.net wants to thank all the participants for engaging with the fans from those early days to now, 20 years later, in such a respectful and candid nature. THANK YOU Gordon Paddison, Richard Taylor, Jed Brophy, Mark Ordesky, Michael Pellerin, & Rick Porras for making the time to celebrate this record setting trailer release.

Watch the entire conversation as it streamed live here:

For the past four years we have covered the releases of The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, a series by James A. Owen, in which Tolkien and fellow Inklings C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams are the Caretakers of the Atlas of the Imaginary Lands. October 19 marks the release of Book 5 in the series: The Dragon’s Apprentice.

The Caretakers must fight against their most fearsome enemy ever and attempt to restore Time. They must journey through a forgotten Door from the destroyed Keep of Time in order to seek out the Dragon’s Apprentice. If they fail, it will mean the end of both of the worlds. But success will carry its own price–a price that may be too high even for the Caretakers to bear.

James A. Owen is the author of hit series The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica. He was Guest of Honor at Myth Con 2009. Here, There be Dragons, Book 1 in the series, is being prepared for the big screen by producers Rick Porras and Mark Ordesky, who worked in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings.

This morning the now ten nominations for “Best Picture” for the 2010 Academy Awards were announced as as expected, there are plenty of ties to the LOTR community.

“Avatar” with powerful ties to Weta Digital and “District 9,” produced by Peter Jackson and with conceptual design (not an Academy category) also from Weta, are competing in the “Best Picture” category. The two films are also nominated in “Best Visual Effects,” and “Best Editing.” Each film received other nominations as well. See inside for a full list of all nominations and talk about it in our forums. Continue reading “Strong ties in Best Picture race”

Kristin Thompson, author of ‘The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood’, writes: I’ve posted the third and final part of my conversation with Lord of the Rings co-producer Rick Porras, from the New York Barnes & Noble signing back in September. This part continues the enjoyable question-and-answer session. Thanks again to Rick and to the fans who attended! Rick Porras Chat Part 2

Kristin Thompson, author of ‘The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood’, writes: I’ve posted on the Frodo Franchise blog the second part (of three) of my conversation with Lord of the Rings co-producer Rick Porras. We talk about international distributors getting tours of the filmmaking facilities and about the Cannes preview of 2001, plus we begin fielding questions from the audience. Rick Porras Chat Part 2

Kristin Thompson, author of ‘The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood’, writes: Back in September, Rick Porras joined me for a conversation and Q & A during my signing event for The Frodo Franchise at Barnes & Noble in New York. I’ve transcribed that now, and it’s full of wonderful information on the Lord of the Rings planning, filming, videogames, and so on. Rick worked in a wide range of capacities for Rings, and much of the material here has not come out in previous interviews. The transcription is pretty long, so I’ll be posting it in three parts. The first one is up now. Rick Porras Interview