Twenty-five years after the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, this landmark oral history takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most ambitious and beloved film productions ever undertaken. Drawing on interviews with almost 100 cast and crew members, journalist Sam Moore chronicles the extraordinary journey that brought J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic to the screen. From director Peter Jackson’s struggle to get the films made and the challenges of adapting a supposedly “unfilmable” masterpiece, to the groundbreaking visual effects innovations that transformed modern filmmaking, There and Back Again reveals the story behind the story. Featuring contributions from stars including Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies and Andy Serkis, alongside writers, designers, technicians and key creative collaborators, the book captures the passion, ingenuity and camaraderie that defined the production. Readers will discover how Gollum was brought to life through revolutionary motion-capture technology, how New Zealand became Middle-earth, and how a cast of relative strangers forged lifelong friendships that endure to this day. Insightful, entertaining and packed with previously untold anecdotes, There and Back Again accounts the making of a cinematic phenomenon that changed fantasy filmmaking forever.
