Peter Jackson completely conquered the film industry with his powerful trilogy of The Lord of the rings of the 2000s. A macro project that managed to honor JRR Tolkien and his works as he deserved.fantasy bookswhich were about to receive a flesh-and-blood adaptation several decades earlier.
That possible version would have starred The Beatles and such madness almost occurred because the production company United Artists had closed an agreement with the group. Three films were to be made, namely: A Hard Day’s Night, Help! y Yellow Submarine, but the latter being animated in nature. That is why Denis O’Dell, head of Apple Films, got to work to get the quartet in front of the cameras in a new project.
Right at that time United Artists was close to obtaining the film rights to The Lord of the rings, so the stars began to align. The Beatles would be the main faces of a musical based on Middle Earth and that is why they began their education on the fantasy universe.
Peter Jackson not only directed the trio of films, but was responsible for directing the 2021 Get Back documentary about the band. Taking advantage of his contact with Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney, the director obtained information that he shared with the BBC:
“When they (The Beatles) went to Rishikesh and stayed in India, it was about three months with the Maharishi in early 1968, he (O’Dell) sent the books to The Beatles. I guess since there were three of them, he sent a book to each of The Beatles. I don’t think Ringo received one, but John, Paul and George each received a Lord of the Rings book to read in India.”
The choice of roles seemed to indicate that McCartney would be Frodo, Ringo would be in charge of Sam, George Harrison was nominated as Gandalf and Lennon could not decide on anyone, even considering the idea of being Gollum. In turn, the artists Donovan and Twiggy would be Merry and Galadriel, respectively, although production became very complicated.
O’Dell discovered with bitterness that the rights to The Lord of the rings They had already been sold by Jack Schwartzman, a lawyer friend. Trying to renegotiate the situation, Schwartzman opened the door to hope to recover the rights for a year, but in exchange O’Dell had to hire a star director. Davind Lean refused and Stanley Kubrick did not dare to captain a film that he described as “unfilmable” for the time, so Michelangelo Antonioni was the only candidate standing. Despite the efforts, the final obstacle appeared, as Jackson relates:
“In the end, they couldn’t get the rights to Tolkien, because he didn’t like the idea of a pop group interpreting his story. So he turned it down. They tried to do it. There’s no doubt about it. For a moment they seriously considered doing it. in early 1968.”
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