"Flashback to the holiday season of 2001. After years of filming, the first film in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, is due to hit theaters, and expectations are sky high. With all three films already shot and in the process of being completed, everything is riding on the first movie being a success because if it flops, New Line has got two more pricey movies they still have to finish (they were in a similar position to Disney with the Avatar films). But not only is The Fellowship of the Rings a smash hit but critics and audiences alike hail the film as a new classic. Overnight, Peter Jackson becomes one of the biggest directors in the business, and the Fellowship’s cast, which includes Viggo Mortensen, Elijah Wood, and a then-unknown Orlando Bloom, become icons overnight.

Of course, it was only the beginning, with The Two Towers and The Return of the King just as popular, climaxing with the final film in the trilogy winning Best Picture and Best Director at the Oscars. In this episode of What You Need to Know About this Franchise, we dig into the long process of making Peter Jackson’s iconic trilogy while also exploring the key differences between the theatrical and extended cuts, which many fans believe are the definitive versions of the films..."