(12.12.2001) Mark Ordesky, the president of Fine Line Pictures, New Line‘s specialty film division, was a longtime Tolkien fan and early proponent of the project. He remembered the first meeting in 1998 between Mr. Jackson and Mr. Shaye. The rights to the project had been in the hands of Miramax Films, but that studio, reluctant to make a film of the scope and expense that Mr. Jackson was proposing, gave him a three-week window to shop it around to other studios.

“At the time, Peter Jackson was proposing that it be made into two films,“ Mr. Ordesky said. “In the middle of his pitch, Bob Shaye asked him: ‚Aren‘t there three books in the series? Why are you making two films? Why not three?‘ “