{"id":87233,"date":"2014-02-27T21:32:17","date_gmt":"2014-02-28T02:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=87233"},"modified":"2014-02-27T21:32:17","modified_gmt":"2014-02-28T02:32:17","slug":"how-the-return-of-the-king-won-best-picture-and-11-oscars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2014\/02\/27\/87233-how-the-return-of-the-king-won-best-picture-and-11-oscars\/","title":{"rendered":"How The Return of the King won best picture and 11 Oscars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Complete
Return of the King ‘For Your Consideration’ Ads for the 2004 Academy Awards.<\/figcaption><\/figure> How exactly did New Line go about mounting its campaign that 10 years ago won The Return of the King a history-making 11 Academy Awards? Vanity Fair interviewed many of those at New Line who were involved in the multi-million-dollar campaign, and the effect that the commercial and critical success had on the way Hollywood views fantasy films.<\/p>\n

The biggest problem \u2013\u2013 and this started with Fellowship \u2013\u2013 was we had the dreaded F word; we were the fantasy movie, and there was no fantasy movies that ever won for best picture. Russell Schwartz, executive vice president of marketing at New Line Cinema in 2004.<\/i>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thanks to Ringer Boromir’s Bane for the heads-up.<\/p>\n

This slideshow requires JavaScript.<\/p>

<\/div>
\n“For Your Consideration” ads from The Hollywood Reporter. Credit: Ringer Spy Frodosam & Ringer Spy ShelaghC<\/b><\/p>\n
\n

11 Oscars to Rule Them All: An Oral History of The Return of the King\u2019s Best-Picture Win<\/h3>\n

It took one ring to rule them all, and 11 Oscars to make movie history. Ten years ago this month, The Return of the King, the third and final chapter in The Lord of the Rings franchise, did the unthinkable: it swept the Academy Awards, winning all 11 categories it was nominated for, including best picture.<\/p>\n

On paper, the film\u2013\u2013and the franchise as a whole\u2013\u2013was the polar opposite of Oscar bait. These were fantasy films filled with dwarves and hobbits and elves and magic rings. They were directed by a filmmaker known for low-budget horror flicks; cast with a group of unknown actors few audiences could pick out of a lineup; and written, planned, shot, and edited all in New Zealand, far away from the cozy awards-friendly confines of sunny Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

What Oscar cognoscenti didn\u2019t see from the outset, they would come to realize by 2001, when The Fellowship of the Ring was released to overwhelming critical acclaim. The first chapter would go on to nab 13 nominations\u2013\u2013a series high\u2013\u2013but only come away with technical awards. A year later, The Two Towers grabbed six nods, but it too lost out on best picture. That set the stage for the final movie, as New Line focused its attention on getting Peter Jackson and the J. R. R. Tolkien-based series the Academy recognition it deserved.<\/p>\n

In honor of the 10th anniversary of the The Return of the King\u2019s awards sweep, VF Hollywood pieced together the film\u2019s entire Oscar campaign. Speaking with more than a dozen people involved with the effort\u2013\u2013from New Line executives to designers to consultants\u2013\u2013we were able to paint a complete picture of how a fantasy film was able to win 11 Academy Awards\u2013\u2013including the granddaddy of them all, best picture\u2013\u2013and change the trajectory of the Oscars.<\/p>\n

[Read More<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How exactly did New Line go about mounting its campaign that 10 years ago won The Return of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":87250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,22,1287,71,74,38,498,149],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-headlines","category-new-line-cinema-production-studios","category-events-oscar-parties","category-jackson","category-rotk-book","category-production-studios","category-lotr"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/11735_orig.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-mGZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87233"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87263,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87233\/revisions\/87263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}