The Lord of the Rings has been adapted into various media, including radio, stage, motion pictures, and videogames.
Radio
The book has been adapted for radio four times. In 1955 and 1956, the BBC broadcast The Lord of the Rings, a 13-part radio adaptation of the story. In the 1960s radio station WBAI produced a short radio adaptation. A 1979 dramatization of The Lord of the Rings was broadcast in the United States and subsequently issued on tape and CD. In 1981, the BBC broadcast The Lord of the Rings, a new dramatization in 26 half-hour instalments.[98][99]
Motion pictures
A variety of filmmakers considered adapting Tolkien's book, among them Stanley Kubrick, who thought it unfilmable,[100][101] Michelangelo Antonioni,[102] Jim Henson,[103] Heinz Edelmann,[104] and John Boorman.[105] A Swedish live action television film, Sagan om ringen, was broadcast in 1971.[106] In 1978, Ralph Bakshi made an animated film version covering The Fellowship of the Ring and part of The Two Towers, to mixed reviews.[107] In 1980, Rankin/Bass released an animated TV special based on the closing chapters of The Return of the King, gaining mixed reviews.[108][109] In Finland, a live action television miniseries, Hobitit, was broadcast in 1993 based on The Lord of the Rings, with a flashback to Bilbo's encounter with Gollum in The Hobbit.[110][111]
A far more successful adaptation was Peter Jackson's live action The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, produced by New Line Cinema and released in three instalments as The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). All three parts won multiple Academy Awards, including consecutive Best Picture nominations. The final instalment of this trilogy was the second film to break the one-billion-dollar barrier and won a total of 11 Oscars (something only two other films in history, Ben-Hur and Titanic, have accomplished), including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.[112][113] Commentators including Tolkien scholars, literary critics and film critics are divided on how faithfully Jackson adapted Tolkien's work, or whether a film version is inevitably different, and if so the reasons for any changes, and the effectiveness of the result.[114]
The Hunt for Gollum, a 2009 film by Chris Bouchard,[115][116] and the 2009 Born of Hope, written by Paula DiSante and directed by Kate Madison, are fan films based on details in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings.[117]
From September 2022, Amazon has been presenting a multi-season television series of stories, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. It is set at the beginning of the Second Age, long before the time of The Lord of the Rings, based on materials in the novel's appendices.[118][119][120]
In early 2023, Warner Bros Discovery announced that multiple new movies set in Middle-earth are in development, and will be produced along with New Line Cinema and Freemode.[121]
Audiobooks
In 1990, Recorded Books published an audio version of The Lord of the Rings,[122] read by the British actor Rob Inglis. A large-scale musical theatre adaptation, The Lord of the Rings, was first staged in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 2006 and opened in London in June 2007; it was a commercial failure.[123]
In 2013, the artist Phil Dragash recorded the whole of the book, using the score from Peter Jackson's movies.[124][125][126]
During the COVID-19 lockdown, Andy Serkis read the entire book of The Hobbit online to raise money for charity.[127] He then recorded the work again as an audiobook.[128] The cover art was done by Alan Lee. In 2021, Serkis recorded The Lord of the Rings novels.[129]
