LOTR trilogy rerelease shows Hollywood’s disconnect from audiences

The profitable rerelease of Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy reflects more than the staying power of the quarter-century-old J.R.R. Tolkien-based film franchise – it reveals a troubling creative gap in today’s Hollywood.

First released in 2001, “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” the epic high adventure fantasy film, grossed upwards of $900 million at the box office. Sequels “The Two Towers” (2002) and “The Return of the King” (2003) grossed over $2 billion combined.

Rereleasing profitable and popular movies is a tradition that goes back generations beginning with classics such as “The Wizard of Oz,” “Gone with the Wind” and “Casablanca.” Before television and then video cassette recorders, the theater was the only place to re-watch what you saw on your neighborhood big screen.

But studio executives recognized that viewers consider it satisfying to see a movie more than once (or twice or more!) – and sometimes even years or decades apart. Holiday or anniversary rereleases have proven profitable. With the advent of IMAX technology and digital restoration capabilities, it’s been easy to find an excuse to reintroduce some of the classics.

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Ian McKellen, seen here in a still from “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” played Gandalf opposite Elijah Wood’s Frodo, based on the book by J.R.R. Tolkien. (New Line/WireImage/Getty Images)

In the hundred-plus years of Hollywood moviemaking, over 25,000 films have been made. Major studios today are churning out between 200 and 300 titles every year. That may sound like a lot, but it’s a dramatic decrease from a century ago when over 800 films were made every 12  months.

While ranking movies is subjective, the vast majority are forgettable – but some are memorable, and not always because we love them. It’s interesting and revealing that according to IMDb, the Internet Movie Database, of the top 10 worst movies of all time, all but one (“RoboCop 3”) were made this century. Conversely, of the top 10 best movies, just four were made in the last quarter-century – and two of them were “Lord of the Rings” titles.

Keep in mind, the British writer J.R.R. Tolkien wrote his famed series in the early to middle part of the last century.

One of the more curious and baffling habits of Hollywood is studios’ stubbornness and reluctance to produce more movies that appeal to families. Instead, they insist on making films that offend our moral sensibilities, despite evidence suggesting cleaner and more wholesome fare would perform better than the trash they’re creating. We’re bombarded with dark storylines littered with unnecessary profanity and gratuitous doses of sexuality and violence. Instead of goodness we get garbage.

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Since it costs more to see a movie today than generations ago, it’s misleading to look to the top-grossing films in history to see what struck a chord with audiences. Instead, look at what movies sold the most tickets. Of the top 10 titles that have been seen by the most people, six are solid family fare: “Gone with the Wind,” “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “The Sound of Music,” “The Ten Commandments” and the 1937 “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

A seventh, “Jaws,” scared lots of children and beachgoers alike, but was still relatively tame compared to today’s offering. There’s not one “R” rated movie on the list.

So why not make more of what’s obviously working? This disconnect is something I’ve seen during my three decades working at Focus on the Family, a global family-help organization. We hear from countless mothers and fathers hungry for wholesome and inspiring movies. That’s why we’re releasing our first animated children’s movie in theaters this coming fall: “Adventures in Odyssey: Journey Into the Impossible.” It’s the origin story of a long-running children’s radio program.

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Of course, movies reflect the culture, but they also reveal the hearts and minds of those running studios and writing the scripts for the stories being told. You probably don’t know the name Lewis R. Foster, but you’re likely familiar with the movie he won an Academy Award for writing: “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” starring Jimmy Stewart and directed by Frank Capra.

English actor Bernard Hill portrayed the heroic Théoden, king of Rohan, in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. He died on May 5, 2024, at 79. (PictureLux/The Hollywood Archive/Alamy Stock Photo)

Stewart credited the classic film about the idealistic junior senator fighting corruption in the D.C. swamp with shaping his career and helping him see how strong and moral characters can positively influence the world. Foster personally embodied those ideals, loved America, his wife and family, and dreamed up the story. Because of that one story, Stewart pursued others like it – including “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.”

One man’s beautiful mind helps make other minds more beautiful, too. Everything affects everything else.

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There’s a reason the apostle Paul, who called himself the “chief of sinners,” urged people to be careful what they watched and read. There were no movies 2,000 years ago, obviously, but there were plenty of other things vying for attention that influenced human behavior. That’s why Paul wrote, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Of course, movies reflect the culture, but they also reveal the hearts and minds of those running studios and writing the scripts for the stories being told. 

If we really want to redeem culture, we’ll encourage the making of more movies like the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy that embody these very virtues, of hope over fear, good over evil, and the importance of friendship, loyalty and sacrifice.

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In his 1954 New York Times review of “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the poet and essayist W.H. Auden praised the British writer, suggesting his “invention is unflagging.” He then added, “Mr. Tolkien is fortunate in possessing an amazing gift for naming and a wonderfully exact eye for description … No fiction I have read in the last five years has given me more joy than ‘The Fellowship of the Ring.’”

Hollywood would be doing us all (and its own financial bottom line) a favor if they would seek to emulate these same attributes of its screenwriters when sorting through scripts and stories for the big screen.

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