 I just took a short lunch break and had a chance to watch Charlie Rose interview Peter Jackson (the director of the Lord of the Rings). Wow. He told a fantastic story about how the film got financed.
The LoR is already one of the most biggest movie franchises of all time. The first film grossed over $700 m and there are two more films in the pipeline. There are 13 Academy Awards in play for the film (the awards will provide another bump for the film). This is going to be a multi-multi-billion $$ franchise. The cost of this franchise? ~$200m bucks.
You would think that financing this production would have been a no-brainer for a studio. It wasn't. It was a near run thing. The LoR is clearly a big idea. Big ideas are difficult to finance because many financiers won't get it.
Peter's team had been working on the project under Miramax (Disney) for two years before they finally came up with a budget for the project. Their proposal was that it would need at least two films (to provide a correct treatment of the material) at a total cost of $120 m. They had already spent $20 m in pre-production. Upon learning of the cost Miramax balked. Disney wouldn't approve a budget of over $75m. So Miramax asked that only one film be made for $75 m. Peter and his team concluded that a single film would be a disaster, so in response they resigned from the project and flew back to New Zealand.
While they were enroute to New Zealand, Peter's agent asked Miramax to give the team a chance to look for another source of funding. Miramax agreed, as long as the other studio cut them a $20 m check in less than 30 days. So, Peter had 4 weeks to find $20 m and support for two films. To make an impact, he quickly made a video of the project demonstrating the work done so far. Video in hand he and his team flew back to Hollywood. It was a disaster. Everyone turned him down except two companies, Polygram and New Line. The meeting with Polygram went well, but Polygram was going through an acquisition and couldn't write a check in 3 weeks.
Peter's team was left with one meeting and two weeks to go. When they arrived for the meeting, the New Line CEO Bob Shaye sat down with Peter alone. During that chat he promised Peter that a turn down on the LoR project wouldn't mean that he couldn't bring new projects to New Line in the future. Peter was devastated -- this was clearly a pep talk to soften the blow. The general meeting commenced and the video was played. At the end of the video (36 minutes), Bob said in a deadpan voice, "I don't get it."
The team collapsed. This was it, Miramax would do a single movie with another team and all their work would be for naught. Worse, a single movie would be something that everyone would hate.
Fortunately, Bob continued, "I don't get it, this should be three films. There are three books, there should be three films." Wow. Billions of dollars, fame, and a franchise resting on one decision made by a person with vision.
12:49:18 PM 
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