Toni Edelmann

Toni Edelmann

J. R. R. Tolkien's novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, set in Middle-earth, have been the subject of various film adaptations. There were many early failed attempts to bring the fictional universe to life in screen, some even rejected by the author himself, who was skeptical of the prospects of an adaptation. While animated and live-action shorts were made off of Tolkien in 1967 and 1971, the first commercial depiction of the book onscreen was in an animated TV special in 1977. In 1978 the first big screen adaptation of the fictional setting was introduced in the animated The Lord of the Rings. The rights to adapt Tolkien's works passed through the hands of several studios, having been briefly leased to Rembrandt films before being sold perpetually to United Artists, who then partially passed them to Fantasy films. During this time, filmmakers who attempted to adapt Tolkien's works include William Snyder, Peter Shaffer, John Boorman, Ralph Bakshi, Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro. Other filmmakers and producers who were interested in an adaptation included Walt Disney, Forrest Ackerman, Denis O'Dell (who contacted David Lean, Stanley Kubrick and Michaelangelo Antonioni to direct) and Heinz Edelmann.

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