The Making of Middle-earth with Executive Producer Mark Ordesky
How Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy almost never happened—and what happened when it did
Stay on social media long enough, and you’re bound to encounter a meme featuring the late, great Ian Holm as old Bilbo Baggins, peering out from beneath layers of Wētā Workshop’s remarkable makeup.
Despite Bilbo’s years, he’s still ready for another adventure. It’s a scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King—my favorite movie of all time—that never fails to stir up tears.
The meme often reflects on how far we’ve come since these films premiered, reminding us that some of today’s young adults hadn’t even been born yet. It’s been over two decades since Peter Jackson’s brilliant The Lord of the Rings trilogy first graced the big screen. Perhaps we’re not old, though—just “well-preserved,” as the Hobbits might say.
Today, I want to take you on an adventure—one filled with all the classic elements: excitement, heroic escapes, cliffhangers, and encounters with elves, goblins, dragons, and trolls. Figuratively speaking, of course. This is the tale of how these beloved films came to be, the creative genius behind them, and the dark forces he often stood against.
At the heart of this journey is Mark Ordesky, Executive Producer on all three films and a key figure in bringing Middle-earth to life. From his perspective, we’ll explore some of the extraordinary challenges and triumphs that shaped The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The Time Before
There was a time, long before I found the magic of Middle-earth, when I wasn’t a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. While my friends and fellow fantasy and Dungeons & Dragons nerds went on and on about Tolkien’s world, I stayed on the sidelines. They told me I should read the books, but I shrugged it off, saying they were too grandiose for my tastes. “Not my thing,” I’d say.
The real reason was simpler—and harder to admit. I wasn’t a strong reader. Even The Hobbit felt like a challenge, and The Lord of the Rings, with its thousand-plus pages, seemed impossible. I did try once, but I couldn’t make it past Bilbo’s birthday preparations in Hobbiton. It felt too slow, too dull. Pulpy sword and sorcery was more my thing. I owned a lot of Conan the Barbarian comics.
After my initial attempts at reading The Lord of the Rings, I had all but forgotten about J.R.R. Tolkien and his works. There were some reminders, though: Ralph Bakshi’s attempt at an animated adaption, an old video game on my Amiga 500 and the countless references woven into Dungeons & Dragons, which I played almost constantly during those teenage years. Yet, as Tolkien himself wrote, “The road goes ever on and on,” and sometimes it takes years before we’re ready to follow where it leads.
My Love of Movies
Movies are my life. It’s that simple.
Growing up in Norway in the 80s and 90s, I had the (mis)fortune of falling in love with the moving picture at an early age. My father rented the original Star Wars on VHS one day when I was seven, and from that moment, my life changed forever.
This was what I wanted to do. While other kids dreamed of becoming firefighters or policemen, seven-year-old Eirik wanted to be a… special effects technician. That’s right—my dream was to create starships, alien creatures, and explosions!
In the late 90s, my love of movies brought me back to my then-nonexistent relationship with J.R.R. Tolkien’s works.
There were tidings from the South, whispers of a New Zealand film nerd attempting the impossible. When pictures from the production began to surface, I was hooked. Determined to be ready for the films, still a couple of years away, I gave the books another chance.
And this time, I loved them. It wasn’t easy, and it took me quite a while, but by the time I reached the end of the third book, I knew I had found my favorite books—a short list, to be fair, since I hadn’t read much until then.
The Day Arrived
When the first film of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy premiered at Oslo’s massive Colosseum cinema, it was like the Star Wars moment from my childhood all over again. It reaffirmed my determination to engage with stories, to experience and explore in ways I hadn’t believed possible until then.
The year was 2001, and 23-year-old me felt utterly trapped in Norway. I still had a strong passion for movies and a dream of someday making movies myself, though it had evolved over time—from special effects to acting and then to directing. It would later go through several other stages before landing on writing many years later.
But the possibilities of working in film in Norway, especially the kind of films I wanted to create, were so limited that it felt practically impossible. Knowing that my passion for film would allow me to do nothing else, I was depressed.
And then, the day arrived.
When I finally watched The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, I was transported to another world. From Galadriel’s ethereal narration of Sauron and the Ring to the breathtaking landscapes of the Shire, I was utterly entranced. By the time Gandalf and Frodo rolled into Hobbiton, I was in tears.
It was perfect.
Following the Road
The Fellowship of the Ring was followed by The Two Towers in 2002 and The Return of the King in 2003. The trilogy earned countless accolades, including a total of 17 Oscars, with 11 of those won by The Return of the King. I remember sitting in my small apartment in Sydney, where I went to film school in 2004, watching Peter Jackson and his fellowship of creatives win Oscar after Oscar that year.
Over two decades later, J.R.R. Tolkien’s books and their adaptations remain deeply important to me. Whether it’s Peter Jackson’s original adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, his later and decidedly wackier The Hobbit trilogy, or Amazon’s amazing exploration of the Second Age of Middle-earth in The Rings of Power, I love them all. Each brings something different.
I also followed the road I promised myself to walk when I first watched the movies. In 2022, I spent three weeks in New Zealand, where, as a journalist, I got to visit Wētā Workshop, interview Richard Taylor and Daniel Falconer, and enjoy a behind-the-scenes guided tour of the workshops, where I met many of the very talented craftspeople working there. What an experience! I also traveled to key filming locations across the country, from the Hobbiton Movie Set to Mount Sunday, where they built Edoras for The Two Towers, and many more.
The Legend of the Film Rights
But how did J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings even get adapted into a wildly successful trilogy of films in the first place?
There’s a common belief that J.R.R. Tolkien was adamantly against translating The Lord of the Rings into film. While he was indeed cautious, this isn’t entirely accurate. The Oxford professor and devout Catholic considered various film proposals throughout his life, but most struggled to adapt Middle-earth faithfully, often stalling before even reaching pre-production. Many insisted Frodo’s journey to Mount Doom was simply “unfilmable.”
The intricacies of the film rights were a saga in themselves. For years, these rights were held by American producer Saul Zaentz, whose legal entanglements made any new attempt at adaptation a daunting challenge.
Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 attempt was a curious venture—a partially animated, partially completed project that, while disjointed and far from Tolkien’s vision, eventually gained a cult following.
Bakshi’s Hobbits all looked nearly identical—except for Sam, whom author
humorously described as resembling a “melted garden gnome” in Anything You Can Imagine: Peter Jackson and the Making of Middle-earth.The journey to a serious, full-length adaptation nearly veered off course multiple times. Take The Beatles’ surreal proposal, for example: John, Paul, George, and Ringo once planned a multimedia adaptation, with Paul as Frodo, Ringo as Sam, George as Gandalf, and John as Gollum. Naturally, there would be music and plenty of psychedelia.
Then there’s John Boorman, the British director known for Excalibur (1981), who proposed a version filled with strange songs, surreal visions, and explicit scenes. Thankfully for fans—and likely for Tolkien himself—this adaptation never progressed beyond the script phase.
Boorman later repurposed his fantasy sensibilities into Excalibur, delivering one of cinema’s most unique takes on the Arthurian legend. And in the early ’90s, a Russian TV adaptation emerged, recently resurfacing online to mixed amusement and bewilderment.
For many years, the rights to Tolkien’s work lay dormant, “secret and safe,” deep in Saul Zaentz’s vault. The idea of a true cinematic The Lord of the Rings passed into legend—until it was picked up by the most unlikely filmmaker imaginable.
A Film Nerd from Wellington
Peter Jackson, who would eventually become the unlikely champion of Tolkien’s world, began his journey far from Hollywood. A self-taught filmmaker, Jackson grew up entranced by Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion effects, The Thunderbirds, and Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
With an 8mm camera gifted to him as a child, he turned his backyard and basement into makeshift film sets, where imaginary worlds and wild creatures took shape.
His early films were gory, outrageous, and unapologetically weird. Bad Taste (1987) and Braindead (1992) became cult hits in the splatter genre, while Meet the Feebles (1989)—a hilariously disturbing puppet satire—showcased Jackson’s audacious style.
Though the conservative New Zealand film industry was initially wary of his reputation as “that guy with the splatter films,” Jackson’s creativity couldn’t be ignored.
In 1994, he won critical acclaim with Heavenly Creatures, a haunting psychological drama about two teenage girls whose friendship led to a notorious New Zealand murder case. The film’s success opened doors, eventually leading Jackson to Hollywood, where he made The Frighteners (1996) with Michael J. Fox.
The Twisting Paths of Hollywood
Hollywood took notice of Jackson after Heavenly Creatures, but The Lord of the Rings wasn’t initially on his radar. First, he teamed up with Bob and Harvey Weinstein, hoping to remake King Kong, his childhood favorite, and later flirted with a new Planet of the Apes project.
However, after The Frighteners underperformed, the King Kong remake was shelved, and Tim Burton took on Planet of the Apes. This left Jackson with the daunting task of bringing The Lord of the Rings—considered unfilmable by many—into production.
Working with the Weinsteins came with challenges. They initially wanted Jackson to compress The Lord of the Rings trilogy into two films, and later, into a single film, which Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh refused.
Threats ensued, with rumors even circulating that Quentin Tarantino might be brought in to direct instead. The situation grew tense, but Jackson and Walsh held their ground, insisting on a more faithful approach to Tolkien’s work.
Finally, Jackson managed to extract the project from Miramax and take it to New Line Cinema, where Robert Shaye, New Line’s CEO, saw the potential for a full trilogy. Shaye greenlit the project, setting the stage for one of the most ambitious undertakings in film history.
The Canary in the Gold Mine
After the protracted battle with Miramax and the Weinsteins, Jackson and Walsh finally secured the rights to The Lord of the Rings, bringing the project to New Line Cinema. It was at this pivotal moment that
stepped into the story.A lifelong Tolkien enthusiast and a self-described “Jackson partisan,” Ordesky had championed Jackson’s bold vision since Bad Taste and Braindead. With a background full of full in fantasy novels and epic Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, he was uniquely suited to the daunting task of overseeing the production.
Sent by New Line CEO Robert Shaye to act as the studio’s “canary in the coal mine,” Ordesky relocated to New Zealand as New Line’s eyes and ears on the ground, tasked with reporting back if the wheels began to come off on this very ambitious production.
Ordesky’s role wasn’t just about guiding the production but also ensuring that any potential issues were addressed before they could jeopardize the project. To Ordesky, it was clear from the start that The Lord of the Rings demanded a trilogy—not two films, certainly not one, but three!
As an executive producer, he stepped into what would become one of the most challenging yet rewarding experiences of his career. It’s easy to imagine the heady mix of emotions he must have felt: joy, apprehension, and the sense of being part of cinematic history.
That “coal mine” Ordesky was sent to — it was full of gold!
Creativity and Constraints
Mark Ordesky’s journey into Hollywood didn’t begin with blockbusters but in the trenches of low-budget horror and sci-fi sequels destined for the VHS market. As a junior executive at New Line Cinema, he was handed the less “sexy” projects, like Critters 3 and Critters 4, to fill gaps in the company’s repertoire.
“No one, really, at New Line on the production team wanted to do those movies,” Ordesky recalled. “They were going to be very inexpensive, and I think no one thought they would be particularly sexy. So, they gave them to me. I was the most junior executive on the team. And they said, ‘Listen, we’re going to need two movies, in nine months, and the combined budget of the two movies must be very low. And we need them, like, right now.’”
Faced with the almost impossible task of cranking out two low-budget Critters sequels in short order, Ordesky turned to his friend, screenwriter and novelist David J. Schow. “I called David and said, ‘We need two scripts in four weeks.’ He hung up and called me back later, saying, ‘I got it. Critters go to the big city, and Critters go to outer space.’” Recalling his initial reaction: “I thought, ‘This is impossible, we have this very small budget.’ But he said, ‘No, they go to the big city—they’ll just be inside an apartment building, and in outer space, they’ll just be inside a spaceship.’”
The two films were shot back-to-back in a single warehouse, an experience Ordesky described as “almost a foreshadowing of The Lord of the Rings.” He explained: “We had two directors, two editors, but the same crew for both films. Obviously, there were different casts, but we shot the interiors of the apartments and the interiors of the spaceship sort of back-to-back. Those were the first films that got me from behind my desk and out into the actual making of things.”
Ordesky’s hands-on experience with Critters marked a turning point in his career. After proving himself capable, he moved on to bigger and better things as the head of Fine Line Features, New Line’s arthouse division. There, he oversaw critically acclaimed films like Saving Grace, State and Main, and Shine, which won an Oscar. “At Fine Line, I had the opportunity to work on projects with a lot more substance,” he said, reflecting on the transition.
He also played a key role in helping Hong Kong superstar Jackie Chan break into the U.S. market with Rumble in the Bronx. Ordesky’s career had come a long way from those low-budget beginnings, but the lessons learned on Critters—about creativity, resourcefulness, and teamwork—would prove invaluable when he stepped into the role of executive producer for The Lord of the Rings.
Small Steps on the Road to Middle-earth
When asked about the leap from low-budget sequels to one of the most ambitious trilogies in film history, Mark Ordesky’s response was both thoughtful and candid. “Hm, the way I see it… and I don’t know how spiritual you are,” he began. I mentioned that I wasn’t particularly spiritual, and he continued:
“Well, I read the books when I was 12 or 13, and when I entered the film industry, I found my way to Peter Jackson through his early films. I kept trying to work with him, trying to get his films distributed, and eventually, I got involved with him at New Line. It felt like all the threads were coming together.”
When Ordesky was unexpectedly named the production executive for The Lord of the Rings, he admitted it was a surprise. “That wasn’t my expectation because I had only worked on lower-budgeted films. But because there was so much work to do, I just had to start. Every month, more and more work was required, of a more complex nature. So, I grew as the work grew.”
Ordesky’s perspective on his role in The Lord of the Rings revealed a sense of providence that resonated deeply with Tolkien’s themes. In a follow-up email, he elaborated: “In the context of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien often evokes providence, as Gandalf speaks of the Ring being found ‘by the most unlikely person imaginable.’ Gandalf says, ‘Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring and not by its maker.’”
Ordesky continued: “When I consider my own role in The Lord of the Rings, I can’t help but see the hand of providence—a parallel to Bilbo. I was meant to read and love Tolkien in the late ’70s and then watch and love the early films by Peter Jackson in the mid-to-late ’80s. By 1998, when Peter’s vision of The Lord of the Rings was in jeopardy, I was at New Line Cinema where I’d been a Jackson partisan for years. New Line was the ideal studio at the ideal moment to bet big on Peter—even one-upping expectations when founder/chairman Robert Shaye recommended making three films instead of two.”
Ordesky’s steady optimism and belief in incremental progress defined his approach to the project. His ability to adapt and grow alongside the increasing complexity of the production helped make Jackson’s vision for Middle-earth a reality.
Dwarf for a Day in Fangorn Forest
When we discussed the five-year production of The Lord of the Rings, I asked Mark Ordesky about his unexpected day as Gimli in Fangorn Forest. He immediately recalled the story, an example of the unique challenges and humor that came with working on such a massive production.
“It’s not only funny,” he explained, “but it really shows Peter’s sense of humor and my role on set. All the studio requests funneled through me. That way, Peter wasn’t bombarded by multiple departments all at once. It was my job to prioritize and space out those requests to make sure things didn’t pile up.”
One day, however, his timing put him in an unusual position. “If I came to set with something important, Peter could tell from my face that it was going to be time-consuming. So, when he saw me coming, he said, ‘Oh, fantastic that you’re here! We need someone to do Gimli’s offlines here in the forest. Stand behind that tree.’
And that was it—I was stuck there for two or three hours doing Gimli’s lines while Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom, and John Rhys-Davies’ double, Brett Beattie, worked through the scene.”
Ordesky noted how rare it was for him to appear in on-set photos, given his behind-the-scenes role. “There aren’t many photos of me on set. I didn’t like making myself prominent in those situations. But somehow, the photographer got a shot of me standing against the bluescreen, surrounded by fake trees. The expression on my face says it all: I’m trapped in Fangorn Forest, unable to ask my question.”
An Unexpected Cannes Party
When I asked Mark Ordesky if he kept any props from the production, he revealed that he had both a Ring used in the film and a hand-forged version of Aragorn’s sword, Anduril. But it was his fondest memory of the journey that truly stood out: the day The Fellowship of the Ring footage debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2001.
“Probably the fondest moment was relatively early in the process,” he began. “It was in Cannes, in May 2001, when we showed 26 minutes of footage to the world press and all the distributors who had pre-bought the trilogy. It spoke to the boldness of New Line as a company to bring that footage. We didn’t have to do that. We could have just waited until December to release the movie.”
Instead, they chose to take a risk. “We took the footage, which is mostly built around the Mines of Moria sequence, and we brought the whole cast. We said, ‘Here’s a substantial preview.’ It was literally like pushing all your chips into the middle of the table for one hand of Blackjack. If it didn’t go well, you’d still release the film in December, but if it worked, it would be unforgettable.”
The gamble exceeded all expectations. “It was pandemonium. People saw something so authentic, so unlike anything they had imagined. It was like the screening heard around the world. It was like a movie from the ’30s where everyone rushes out of the courtroom to the payphones. The reaction was immediate, electric.”
Ordesky vividly remembered one particularly emotional moment. “Our French distributor, Samuel Hadida, who’s sadly passed away, was this big, barrel-chested guy. He literally grabbed me in the lobby of the cinema, picked me up—I’m only 5'6", so it wasn’t hard—and kissed me on the mouth, classic French-style. His smile was so big it looked like his face might break.”
The weight of the moment overwhelmed Mark. “I went up to the projection room because I needed a minute to process it. I wept. I just wept with joy. Only when you take a huge risk, and it works, do you allow yourself to fully realize the magnitude of what was at stake. That moment validated everything—the faith of our distribution partners, Peter and the team in New Zealand—it set the tone for everything that followed.”
Even with the challenges and triumphs still ahead, including Oscar wins and billions in box-office success, Ordesky reflected, “That moment was particularly special. It was a reminder of what can happen when you take a leap of faith.”
The Road Goes Ever On
Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy has often been described as the biggest “independent film” ever made. And while I’m not sure if that label is technically accurate, it certainly feels like it, and talking to Mark Ordesky and others who were involved in the project from start to finish—like Richard Taylor and Daniel Falconer—gave me a sense of what made it so extraordinary.
The trilogy’s magic seems to stem from a perfect storm of unforeseen factors: ambition, uncertainty, the spirit and wildness of New Zealand, unexpected events, and random encounters.
Most importantly, it’s the people—both behind and in front of the camera—who made the project unique and timeless. It’s an alchemy that created three films that can never truly be replicated and, in my view, surpassed.
Sources:
Anything You Can Imagine: Peter Jackson and the Making of Middle-earth (Ian Nathan, 2018)
Middle-earth from Script to Screen: Building the World of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (Daniel Falconer, 2017)
You put tears in my eyes. It's an emotional story which resonates in everyone in love with this trilogy