Not the first LOTR movie

[Caius Marcius]

No: HPFGUIDX 24504

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., eggplant107 at h... wrote:
> This will not be the first lord Of The Rings movie, they made a big 
> budget animation film in 1978 that covered the first book and half 
of 
> the second, it ended rather abruptly. At the time it was the most 
> expensive animated movie ever made, if you count real non inflated 
> dollars it might still be. It did OK at the box office but was not 
a 
> huge hit as expected so the plans to make a second film and finish 
> the story got scraped. Interestedly John Hurt was the voice of 
> Aragon, in the new Harry Potter movie he will play Mr. Ollivander.
> 
It was directed by Ralph Bakshi, best known for Fritz the Cat (the 
post-South Park generation may not appreciate the shock value that 
cute animated cartoon characters spewing four-letter words had back 
in the early 70s). The failure of LOTR seems to have thrown Bakshi's 
career off-track - besides not being able to complete LOTR, he's done 
little of importance since. He did a really dumb swords-and-sorcery 
spoof the year before LOTR called Wizards.

I seem to recall also reading that LOTR was the most expensive 
animated feature as well. But according to the Internet Movie 
Database, the LOTR budget was only $10 million: fairly high for the 
late 70s, but I doubt that would qualify as the most expensive.

  - CMC