Elijah Wood on how Lord of the Rings would be different if it was made today

News
By published

"We were able to make the movies in a bubble"

Elijah Wood in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
(Image credit: New Line Cinema)

Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood doesn't think Peter Jackson's trilogy would get made in the same way today, citing less creative freedom being given to directors and the impact of the internet on leaks and rumors from film sets. 

"There was a great sense of a lack of oversight. Peter and the larger team were allowed to make the movies the way that they wanted to make them without much outside perspective," he said in a recent interview with The New York Times. 

"That doesn’t mean the studio wasn’t afraid or invested. They knew the risk of making these films back to back. I don’t know if he would be able to make them in the same way now. Look, the internet’s different too. There was less scrutiny on the films. There was less known about them. We were able to make the movies in a bubble. We had quaint problems, like there would be some photographers up on a hill, but it was pretty minor. I don’t know if that would be possible now. Now the world is online and there’s a great deal of access afforded to pretty much anybody about anything."

Wood played the hobbit Frodo Baggins who is tasked with traveling across Middle-earth to destroy the One Ring in the movies, which were released between 2001 and 2003. Jackson, who was not the household name he is today at the time, made the movies on a combined budget of $281 million – something unlikely to happen now.

Our next visit to Middle-earth will be in Amazon's Lord of the Rings TV show, which is set to premiere in 2022. In the meantime, check out our list of the best shows on Amazon Prime that you can watch right now.

Emily Garbutt
Emily Garbutt
Entertainment Writer

I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related. I help bring you all the latest news, features, and reviews, as well as helming our Big Screen Spotlight column. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism.