The lesson being: look what can be made for only $4,500!
As an avid Lord of the Rings fan (you do remember how I traveled to New Zealand to seek out filming locations, don’t you?), I was astonished when I watched the trailer below for the fan-made forty-minute film The Hunt for Gollum — astonished because it was so good. And then when I read how little it cost to produce, I was all the more impressed.
Its plot is derived from appendices in The Fellowship of the Ring, and acts as a prequel of sorts. Gandalf is worried that Gollum will tell Sauron about the One Ring, so he sends Aragorn to find the pitiful creature. They did a great job of casting both my favorite wizard and the courageous ranger, and even though all of the shots of Gollum in the trailer are from afar, he looks like the Peter Jackson version, too. He certainly sounds right…
You may be thinking, “Couldn’t several parties sue the pants off of the people who made this?” While the answer is probably “yes,” director Chris Bouchard gave this statement to BBC News: “We got in touch with Tolkien Enterprises and reached an understanding with them that as long as we are completely non-profit then we’re okay. We have to be careful not to disrespect their ownership of the intellectual property. They are supportive of the way fans wish to express their enthusiasm.”
As the first of The Hobbit films won’t even begin filming until spring 2010, you might want to catch The Hunt for Gollum on its web site in the meantime if you’re jonesing for an LOTR fix. No one’s saying it’s as good as the Academy Award winning trilogy, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.
