“Too Many Endings, Man”: How The Lord of the Rings Conquered the Oscars

“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… Read Full Article