Elijah Wood has shared details about Lord of the Rings which many people never paid attention to.
The actor revealed on the Armchair Expert podcast that an orc in the franchise was designed to look like Harvey Weinstein as “a sort of a fuck you” for the hurdles that the disgraced movie mogul put them through to get the trilogy made.
Per Wood, the director and producer Peter Jackson approached Miramax, which owned the rights to the J. R. R. Tolkien books, about taking the project to other studios due to creative differences. Weinstein, who founded Miramax with his brother Bob, allowed Jackson to shop the films with a significant set of caveats.
Wood continued his story, Per THR: “And Miramax said, ‘We will only give it back to you in turnaround, but two things have to happen. One: You have to go get it set up this weekend. And two: Whoever agrees has to agree to make all three at once.”
Wood added that most studios would only agree to do one film, and allow its box office performance to determine whether or not to move forward with a second and third installment. They eventually found a suitor in New Line Cinema. “I think the lore is that they were coming with two and it was Bob Shaye [New Line Cinema founder] who said, ‘We have to do three,’ which is insane,” he said. “An incredible risk. Miramax thought there was no chance in hell.”
According to IndieWire, Jackson had to leak the script of LOTR after learning that Weinstein limited the budget for the first two films to $75 million without informing anyone associated with the production. He leaked the script in hopes that it will get other studios interested. .
“It’s funny, this was recently spoken about because Dom [Monaghan] and Bill [Boyd] have a podcast, The Friendship Onion. They were talking to Sean Astin about his first memory of getting to New Zealand,” Wood recalled now. “He had seen these orc masks. And one of the orc masks — and I remember this vividly — was designed to look like Harvey Weinstein as a sort of a fuck you.”
“I think that is OK to talk about now, the guy is fucking incarcerated,” Wood added. “Fuck him.”
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