The Upcoming Novelization of Peter Jackson's THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING

So, I've been doing some background research on Peter S. Beagle for an encyclopedia article, and I found the following gem of a story while browsing through this interview:
Aaron [interviewer]: I’ve actually seen this so I know that this is true—when the original Lord of the Rings movie came out, The Fellowship of the Ring, the Peter Jackson version…somebody, one of the publishing houses, commissioned a writer to do the novelization of the movie.

Peter [S. Beagle]: I heard that story!

Aaron: And got seven chapters in before somebody said, “You do know it’s a book, right?!” And I’ve read those seven chapters, and they’re terrible…!

Connor [Cochran, PSB's business manageer: I have not heard that story! That’s wonderful. That’s absolutely wonderful.
 That's the main Tolkien-related bit; the whole long interview is here. It's actually a pretty fascinating account of the financial side of contemporary book publishing and licensing. Beagle, apparently, despite his fame, had been in dire straights financially before meeting Connor Cochran in 2001, who had enough savvy to really begin advocating forcefully for Beagle's various rights.

The story, alas, has a sad ending. Just a year after this interview, which happened during 2014, Beagle would sue Cochran for $52 million dollars for fraud and various other things. After a four-year legal battle, Beagle was eventually awarded $332,500 in damages just a few months ago for fraud, defamation, financial elder abuse through constructive fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty.

In any event, now I really want to read those 7 chapters of the Peter Jackson novelization.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Genre Fantasy Bestsellers through 1990

Image
I've been studying Keith Justice's Bestseller Index , which compiles information from two separate bestseller lists -- New York Times Book Review and Publishers Weekly -- up through 1990, and the results are ridiculously fascinating. For instance, you wanna take a stab at which SFF author has the most individual books appear on a bestseller list? No, it ain't Heinlein, Clark, Herbert, or Asimov. It's not even Terry Brooks or David Eddings. No, the answer is Piers Anthony . And even if you somehow pulled that name out of thin air, I guarantee you'll never guess how truly dominate Anthony was. Up through 1990, Anthony had more than double than number of distinct bestsellers than the next most frequent bestseller, Anne McCaffrey. Whereas Anthony had an astounding  22 different books appear on a bestseller list, McCaffrey had "only" 9.** Now, caveats. These numbers need to be taken with one (or two) grains of salt. For instance, although Anthony had 22 two dis
Read more

Thoughts upon Reading Tolkien's New & Expanded LETTERS

So, I'm reading through the newly expanded version of Tolkien's Letters. One thing I hadn't properly realized is that these letters were part of Carpenter's original manuscript back in 1981, but Carpenter had to cut them due to cost. Turns out that Carpenter had a pretty keen eye on what could bear cutting -- most of this new stuff isn't terribly interesting, but I discovered a few nuggets. VINDICATED!! (Me, sorta) Naturally, whenever you read new primary material, your first instinct is to check to see if anything contradicts something you've said in print ... especially biographically. Well, I've made three big "biographical" claims, and here's my sigh of relief: Concerning my claim that, in 1954, Tolkien and colleagues contrived to create CS Lewis's academic chair at Cambridge in exchange for them nominating EM Forster for the Nobel Prize. Nothing in  Letters  supports or contradicts this. In my recent article for  Notes & Queries ,
Read more

Uncovering CS Lewis's First Religious Poem

 So, with my article's official acceptance by the journal English Text Construction , it's time to let the cat out of the bag. Using a combination of metrical analysis and biography, I've ascertained with near perfect certainty the first religious poem C. S. Lewis poem ever wrote .... a short poem, "Sweet Desire," that scholars have never previously paid any attention to. This poem is firmly datable to early 1930, probably January or February is my guess, and given the poem's subject matter, it's clearly talking about CSL's fears and intellectual trepidation about becoming a theist and abandoning atheism for good. It's basically Lewis's version of Caedmon's Hymn . The full metrical details will have to await my article, but one interesting caveat on my claims to firstness. In my peer reviewer's commentary, they recommended I contact a CSL scholar named  Charlie W. Starr, who's been working on Lewis's handwriting for quite a lon
Read more