Hollywood star Elijah Wood is touching upon unknown secrets about the Lord of the Rings trilogy as it marks its 20-year anniversary this year.
Wood took an aim at disgraced producer and convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein by claiming that a monstrous orc costume that was used in the trilogy was designed after him as payback for rough negotiations in regards to the film.
He made the revelation during an interview with Dax Shephard on his Armchair Expert podcast.
The LOTR films were based on J.R.R. Tolkein’s books and the rights to them were bought by Weinstein’s then-production company, Miramax.
Director of the films Peter Jackson had a specific vision for them at the time but that seemed unlikely to happen by the mid-1990s. That is when the 59-year-old filmmaker asked Weinstein about taking them to other studios.
“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,’” Shephard said during his chat with Wood.
“The window of time was insane,” said Wood, adding that Jackson tried to sell it around Hollywood and eventually struck a deal with New Line Cinema founder Bob Shaye “who said, ‘We have to do three,’ which is insane.”
“An incredible risk. Miramax thought there was no chance in hell,” Wood shared.
“It’s funny — this was recently spoken about because Dom [Monaghan] and Bill [Boyd, who played Hobbits Merry and Pippin in the movies] have a podcast, ‘The Friendship Onion.’ They were talking to Sean Astin [who played Samwise] about his first memory of getting to New Zealand,” he went on to recall.
“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 [expletive].”
“I think that is OK to talk about now — the guy is [expletive] incarcerated. [Expletive] him,” he added.