“Too many endings, man!” That was Jack Nicholson’s blunt reaction to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King—as recounted by Frodo himself. Elijah Wood encountered the legendary actor backstage at the Golden Globes in 2004, when the third film in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic was on the campaign trail for the upcoming Academy Awards. The trio of movies, which began with The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001, continued with The Two Towers in 2002, and concluded with the finale in 2003, had been an unspeakably high-stakes gamble, with a bank-breaking $281 million budget, a back-breaking filming and postproduction pace in New Zealand, and cutting-edge visual effects, like Andy Serkis’s performance capture of Gollum, that had never before been attempted on such a grand scale.
The risk had paid off: ring-a-ding-ding. Not only did the trilogy pull in colossal global box office returns of more than $2.9 billion, but it cleared a path for two decades of episodic epics, from Game of Thrones on television to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in theaters and countless wannabes and imitators. Long before that, however, in early 2004, The Lord of the Rings was on the hunt for the ultimate industry recognition at the Oscars—and the groundbreaking trilogy was getting its chops broken over its perceived litany of crescendos and culminations.
“I was backstage at the Golden Globes, and Jack Nicholson’s backstage, and he starts talking to me about Lord of the Rings,” Wood recounted in an interview for the film’s DVD release. “And he’s like, ‘Did you die?’ And I said, ‘Well, yeah, I mean, it sort of depends on how you look at it, with him going away to the Undying Lands at the end.’ And he’s like, ‘What are you talking about? I left a half an hour before that…. Too many endings, man! Should have ended it a lot sooner than that.’”
Was this pronouncement by the great Nicholson, the elder statesman of Academy cool, a harbinger of doom for Return of the King’s Oscar hopes? It won best drama that night at the Globes, as well as best director for Jackson, but the studio behind the trilogy, New Line Cinema, feared that sorcery, elves, and the geopolitics of ancient mystical realms might not resonate with the more erudite members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Fellowship had gotten 13 nominations but only won four—cinematography, makeup, score, and visual effects. Towers had received just six nods, winning for sound editing and visual effects. Each had been in contention for best picture, but the honor had so far eluded the franchise. Some feared it was simply out of reach.
“The biggest problem––and this started with Fellowship––was we had the dreaded F-word,” Russell Schwartz, New Line’s president of theatrical marketing at the time, told Vanity Fair in 2014. “We were the fantasy movie, and there was no fantasy movie that ever won for best picture.”
Even before the beginning of awards season, Oscar pundits had been projecting Return as the Oscar front-runner. Then the National Board of Review, which typically kicks off awards season in early December with its best-film announcement, gave its top prize to the Clint Eastwood–directed crime drama Mystic River, which was also racking up acting honors for star Sean Penn and supporting actor Tim Robbins. Return was still favored as the movie to beat, but it was not an unassailable best-picture juggernaut like Schindler’s List or Titanic. Director Peter Weir’s seafaring drama, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, starring Russell Crowe, was also a dark horse contender.
The movie’s ensemble of actors reunited repeatedly for post-screening Q&As to talk about making not only Return, but the whole saga, since production for all three had been combined. New Line and its awards strategists sought to emphasize the Herculean undertaking of the entire enterprise. As for the issue of the endings, the campaign addressed that by emphasizing the deep connection moviegoers had to the saga’s characters. “What we were able to do was have the humanity of the film land. It was very emotional, you know?” says Christina Kounelias, who was then the executive vice president of marketing for New Line. “It’s like, Look at the humanity, the people coming together, the hardship, endurance, perseverance. The symbolism is very rich. It’s challenging in and of itself to wrap up those endings. After three films, I think there was tremendous investment from the fan base, and people were committed to seeing the fates of each of the characters.”
The result was a leading 11 nominations for The Return of the King, out of 17 eligible categories. There were no acting honors for its performers, but it was represented in nearly every other applicable category except for sound editing and cinematography. Right behind it was Master and Commander, with 10 nods. Among the other best-picture hopefuls, Seabiscuit and Cold Mountain were close behind with seven nominations, and Mystic River came up with six.
Carol Marshall, Jackson’s longtime personal publicist, said that even on Oscar day, the filmmaker was still harboring doubts, right up to the moment he entered the Hollywood theater. “The one thing Peter said to me when I left him on the red carpet at the end—he looked at me and goes, ‘You really think this is gonna happen or no?’ I said, ‘I’ll see you backstage—during the show.’ I had more confidence than he did.”
The ribbing Jackson had repeatedly endured about the multitiered conclusion of his film continued during the Oscar telecast itself. “Lord of the Rings, with 11 nominations,” host Billy Crystal said in his opening monologue. “One for each ending.”
The show opened with a montage in which Crystal was digitally added to the biggest hits of the year—riding on the back of Seabiscuit, flirting with Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, and getting kidnapped in Mystic River. Return of the King was spoofed repeatedly, and in the end Nicholson himself turned up for a cameo, wearing his signature black shades and the luminous white robes of the wizard Gandalf.
After Catherine Zeta-Jones presented the first award of the evening to Robbins for his supporting turn in Mystic River, Angelina Jolie took the stage to announce the second category: art direction (now known as production design). “And the Oscar goes to,” she said, opening the envelope, “…The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.”
It would become the refrain of Oscar night.
Best costume design? “…The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” read presenter Renée Zellweger, who would win supporting actress later in the show for Cold Mountain.
Best visual effects? Jada Pinkett Smith had her husband, Will Smith, read out the long list of names for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Best makeup? Scarlett Johansson announced…you guessed it.
This litany continued in three more categories: sound mixing, original score, and editing. A pattern was becoming clear. If Return of the King was nominated, Return of the King was going to win. So many Kiwis were mentioned onstage that Crystal had a quip ready: “Do you know that people are moving to New Zealand just to be thanked?”
The original-song Oscar went to Return of the King’s closing credits theme, “Into the West,” sung by Annie Lennox and cowritten by Lennox, lyricist Fran Walsh—also a writer on the screenplay (and Jackson’s longtime partner and the mother of their two children)—and composer Howard Shore, who was collecting his second trophy of the ceremony after winning earlier for the film’s score. The show’s orchestra began playing them off after only Lennox had spoken, but Walsh remained at the microphone until the music stopped. “Can I do one thing?” she said, looking left toward the stage managers. “I just want to do one tiny thank-you, and it’s to Sharon and Rhys Duncan, who are watching in New Zealand…”
The audience began to chuckle—“I know…more,” Walsh said. “But their son was an inspiration for this song, and it’s an honor to share it with him.” She offered no further explanation.
Here’s the story she didn’t tell: The song starts with the lyrics, “Lay down / Your sweet and weary head / Night is falling / You have come to journey’s end / Sleep now / And dream of the ones who came before / They are calling / From across the distant shore…” While this might seem to be a reference to Frodo venturing off to the Undying Lands with Gandalf (the last of the multiple endings that Nicholson was too impatient to get through) the song was actually inspired not by Tolkien’s mythology, but by a teenage New Zealand filmmaker named Cameron Duncan, who had befriended Jackson while battling cancer.
When Walsh was struggling to write the words for the song, she watched a short film Duncan made called Strike Zone, about a teenage softball player who has only a few short months to live. “It became more apparent to me that he wasn’t probably going to beat this thing, even though that wasn’t something that you let yourself think about,” Walsh said in a DVD documentary about the creation of the song. “The song is very much about Frodo’s passing, but personally, for me, it was also about reconciling the conflicted feelings about Cameron and what he was facing.”
Duncan died just about a month before Return of the King’s release.
Although the Academy Awards audience, both in the theater and watching at home, was mostly unaware of the heaviness of Walsh’s tribute, a much lighter moment soon followed as the Lord of the Rings film continued its remarkable run.
When Charlize Theron announced the Canadian French comedy The Barbarian Invasions as the winner of the foreign-language Oscar, producer Denise Robert started her speech by saying, “We’re so thankful that Lord of the Rings did not qualify in this category.”
Finally, it was Jackson’s turn to collect a statuette—best adapted screenplay, presented by Francis Ford Coppola and his daughter, Sofia (who, like Zellweger, would also win an award that night, for her original screenplay for Lost in Translation). Jackson, Walsh, and their writing collaborator, Philippa Boyens, accepted the adapted-screenplay trophy together. “We grew up loving these books—we had no idea that we were going to go gray trying to make them into movies,” Boyens said.
“We want to say hi to our kids, Billy and Katie, for putting up so much with mom and dad working on this film all their lives. They’re only seven and eight years old,” added Jackson, who wore a conspicuous sky blue round pin on his tuxedo lapel.
His run was just getting started. Tom Cruise would soon announce him as the winner of best director. “Wow, thank you so much to the Academy! You’re giving us an incredibly overwhelming night!” Jackson said, thanking New Line CEOs Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne for taking a chance on a full trilogy instead of just starting with one film to determine if there was a significant audience for the whole saga. “God, you did the most risky thing that I think anyone has ever done in this industry, and I’m so happy for you that it paid off,” Jackson said, his mysterious blue pin again glinting under the stage lights.
Having already given a shout-out to his children, Jackson now used his moment to call out to his parents in one of the most emotional moments of the broadcast. “I just want to thank two very special people,” Jackson said. “When I was eight years old, I made films at home on a Super 8 camera that my mum and dad had bought for me, and they supported me all through the years. And they died in the last few years. They didn’t see these films made. So, for Bill and Joan…thank you.”
The Return of the King had only one more nomination to go. Kounelias recalled feeling confident at that point, but the tension was still roiling. They were so close. “I think at that point I was like, Okay, I am just going to hang it up after this if best picture doesn’t happen,” she jokes. “I was still sort of pinching myself and crossing my fingers.” If the film didn’t win, she added, “I’d be curled up in a ball somewhere.”
That’s when Steven Spielberg walked onstage to present the evening’s grand prize. “There’s a reason they save best motion picture for last,” he said. “It’s the sum of all the ingredients.” By that point, the math was fairly obvious.
Spielberg opened the envelope: “It’s a clean sweep!” he shouted. “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King…!”
With its 11 wins, the movie tied Titanic and 1959’s Ben-Hur for the record number of Oscar victories, but it remains the only film to win in every category in which it was nominated.
All of the cast members in the audience joined Jackson, Walsh, and fellow producer Barrie M. Osborne onstage. “This is just unbelievable,” Jackson said, giving voice to all of their fears when the Oscar campaign began. “I’m so honored, touched, and relieved that the Academy, and the members of the Academy that have supported us, have seen past the trolls, and the wizards, and the hobbits, and are recognizing fantasy this year.” Echoing the concerns of Schwartz, New Line’s marketing president, Jackson added: “Fantasy is an F-word that hopefully the five-second delay won’t do anything with.”
After the telecast concluded, even Jackson admitted he was taken aback by the sweep. “If I was a betting man, I would’ve lost tonight, because I wouldn’t have put all the money on Lord of the Rings,” Jackson told the entertainment news show Extra, awkwardly clutching his three Oscars in his arms. “There’s no graceful way to hold three of these!” he added. “I’m sure they’re going to get heavier as the night goes on.”
Noting that Walsh had also won three, Jackson said: “We’ve sort of suddenly become a six-Oscar household!”
The filmmaker’s plans for the remainder of Oscar night were to spend it celebrating with the so-called little people—not hobbits, per se, but regular moviegoers and fans at an after-party thrown by TheOneRing.net, an online community devoted to Tolkien’s creations. That’s when Jackson explained the significance of his blue lapel pin.
“This is their badge that they gave me,” he said, tapping it with a fist-clenched Oscar. “[It’s] a good-luck badge, which obviously works. This might be a very powerful good-luck badge. So I’m looking forward to going and celebrating with them…. The Lord of the Rings fans are the lifeblood of these films.”
Jackson then walked off carrying 25 pounds of gold-plated movie history. “We went to TheOneRing party, and by the end of the evening—or the morning—the entire group of The Lord of the Rings nominees ended up back at Peter’s room at the hotel,” says Marshall, who shared the below photo. “Everybody’s Oscar was on the table in a line.”
True to form, the makers of The Return of the King couldn’t bear for it all to end.
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