All language subtitles for Icons.Unearthed.S07E05.Stepping.Out.the.Front.Door.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BTN_track4_[eng]

The power of the three rings
is ended.

2003's "Return of the King"

was embraced
by critics and audiences.

Peter Jackson's trilogy
was an undeniable triumph.

Tolkien fans tend to be people
who have fallen in love

with Middle Earth as a whole,

and Peter Jackson's films
captured that in a way

that I think most Tolkien fans

wouldn't have thought
was even possible.

It was extraordinary.
It really was.

It was also beautiful to watch
Peter and Fran

and to see their pride

in everything they had
accomplished, and in their home.

The films
were a personal success,

an artistic success,
and most certainly a...

Financial success.

"The Lord of the Rings" movies
had made so much money.

- And it was a lot of money.
- Huge amount of money.

Big pile of money.

A lot of money.

The three films made

a total of 2.9 billion
at the box office.

-
- That's at
the box office.

With merchandising
and home video,

that number is actually...

Six billion.

That's so much money.

But for the company
who bet it all,

instead of making money...

New Line was creating
this narrative--

"We didn't make a profit."

- Also known as...
- Creative bookkeeping.

New Line's
stab in the "back end"

would not go unanswered.

There were a lot of lawsuits.

[McWeeny] So many lawsuits
were filed.

There were so many problems.

It was a nightmare
for that studio in ways

they could never have
anticipated.

- To war!
-

Any time there's
a hit movie in Hollywood

there's always
gonna be lawsuits.

The lawsuits
were flying at New Line,

but one of the most shocking

came directly
from the Tolkien estate.

The Tolkien estate was supposed
to receive a percentage.

7.5 gross profit,
including merchandise.

So it's estimated that it might
be around 150 million

the Tolkien estate is owed.

But what they received--

A hard sell for even
the most experienced

Hollywood accountant.

[Bennett] The Tolkien estate
lawyer said New Line

was claiming that
they didn't make any profit,

therefore didn't owe
the Tolkien estate any money.

[Gray] But also Peter Jackson
sued for his share

of the ancillary sales.

He was convinced New Line
was not giving him

full reporting on the sales too,
like DVDs and all that.

And you know, and there was
a lot of "Lord of the Rings"

merchandise sold.

Behold Frodo the hobbit.

And now they're not just to
behold, they're to be held!

Merchandising became
a painful sticking point

for the New Zealand
performers.

We weren't getting a percentage
of our merchandising.

The incentives given to
New Zealand for filming

were benefiting more
the American corporations

than actual local
New Zealanders.

A lot of the overseas actors
were on good SAG contracts,

where they got residuals,

and as Kiwis
we didn't have that.

The acting union got involved
in it as well

and wanted actors to be seen as
employees and not contractors.

And that caused
terrible strife, actually.

So much so
that the issue

found its way right to the top.

Well, it got to the point
where the prime minister

at the time, John Key,
actually changed a law,

and it's known
as the "Hobbit law,"

that basically said that, no,

anybody working on this film
is a contractor.

A major win for the
studio, but that wasn't all.

We had a class action
with them for seven years,

and that was
all over merchandising.

I think they thought we would
just go away,

but it wasn't just
a little bit of money.

The difference between
what they said they'd sold

and what they actually had sold
was quite big,

and I think they thought that
the 16 of us would just go away.

As the years passed,
so did New Line's tactics.

Some of the letters were
very, like,

"You're never gonna work
in the industry again.

You will be blacklisted
forever."

And we were like,
"We kind of don't care.

We work here in New Zealand,
so bring it on."

Years of legal fees
began to take their toll.

Bob Shaye,
the head of New Line,

decided it was time
to print some more money

by simply cranking out
another fantasy hit.

Well, not "The Hobbit."
Not just yet.

First Bob Shaye and New Line

went all in on another
literary adaptation,

creating "The Golden Compass."

Is that all?!

This would prove
that Bob Shaye

didn't need Peter Jackson
or the Tolkien estate.

At a certain point,
New Line became the story.

It was, "No, no,
we are the geniuses

who made 'Lord of the Rings.'"

And it's like, "Well, no,
you had the faith

in 'Lord of the Rings,'
but we made 'Lord of the Rings.'

Like, we did it over there.

You guys really didn't."

And Bob Shaye felt like it
was his company's triumph,

like, it was his triumph.

And I think that was
an inevitable

breaking point
between the two of them.

He absolutely alienated
Peter Jackson.

But Shaye learned
the hard way

what Tolkien and Jackson
brought to the table.

[McWeeny] I think you make
one "Lord of the Rings."

I don't think you can make
15 of them afterwards.

I think you get that once.

Turns out there's
a big difference

between a golden compass
and a golden ring.

New Line overspent on things,

and became a company that didn't
know what they were anymore.

After spending
$180 million,

Bob Shaye's next fantasy
franchise was dead on arrival.

New Line never recovered.

New Line was never
New Line again.

Three months later,

Warner Bros. seized
control of New Line.

[Galano] New Line was absorbed
by Warner Bros. in 2008.

It was sad after
it was announced.

I remember when Bob called us
into the conference room

to tell the executives,

and I personally
called distributors,

and literally grown men
crying on the phone to me.

Yeah, it was
an end of an era.

The production company

that Bob Shaye founded
in 1967

was no longer
his to control,

but the brand
would live on.

New Line continues
as a production entity.

So I originally kept a team,
but we cut back to about 14,

and then with every film
that was released,

we sort of got
a little smaller and smaller

because we didn't have
anything new coming in.

New Line's
new owners, Warner Bros.,

had a plan to revive
the dying studio,

and it involved
returning to a world,

or a Middle Earth,

that New Line knew
all too well.

"The Hobbit" was obviously
the next step.

Because, of course,
the audience is there.

You know you can slam-dunk
a "Hobbit" film.

I think the fandom was
very excited for a "Hobbit" film

if Peter Jackson was going
to be involved.

But to make that happen,

Warner Bros. had to clean up
New Line's legal mess...

So there were a lot
of lawsuits.

I think
they were all settled.

...which meant it was
time to pay up...

New Line gave more money
to the Tolkien estate.

That satisfied them.

...even settling with
a coalition

of New Zealand actors
that had sued

for a percentage
of merchandising revenue.

It was a big thing,
you know?

It wasn't easy to go up
against a major studio

and be made to feel like
we were in the wrong,

when we knew for a fact
that we were in the right.

I'm very proud of the fact
that we held tough on that.

[McWeeny] And so after that
actually gets sorted out,

Peter Jackson was ready
to move on to other things,

and I think everybody involved
was ready to move on

to other things,
except New Line.

And I think New Line
really pushed

for that movie
for a long time.

But there was
a bigger problem,

as wrangling the film
rights to "The Hobbit"

was proving more difficult
than the entire trilogy

of "The Lord of the Rings."

One of the big sticking point

was too many people
owned rights to it.

It was like
a legal nightmare.

And so any time you want to do
any of this stuff,

you have to travel back
through all of this

and unravel all of these things
before you can

even start to figure out
if you can tell a certain story.

When United Artists
had the rights

to "The Lord of the Rings"
and "The Hobbit,"

they only
sold the distribution rights

to "Lord of the Rings,"
not "The Hobbit,"

so by the time we circle
back around to wanting to do

"The Hobbit," United Artists,
who had been bought by MGM...

They still had the rights
to distribute the film

that is made by Warner Bros.
and of course...

- Warner Bros.
acquired New Line.

Right.
All makes sense.

It's a crazy landscape.

A crazy landscape indeed.

And once Warner Bros.

New Line, and MGM
all joined forces...

Five armies now?

...executive producer
Peter Jackson

had some tough decisions
to make, starting with...

Are you comfortable
just letting New Line

go hire a whole
different team of people?

What a load of rubbish.

Absolutely not.

However, Peter said,
"I'll be a consultant,

I'll do anything but actually be
on set and organize this."

Peter had no
intention of directing,

but he at least wanted
to choose his director.

But who would it be?

And so I think there was
a fear, a real fear,

and it became,
"I have to find somebody
who could do it who I trust.

Somebody who's like me,
somebody who's got
the same kind of sensibility,

but who won't
make the same film."

Let somebody else
come in with their voice,

and using the same kind
of assets and technicians,
make their version.

And soon one name
rose to the top of the list.

Peter put Guillermo del Toro
in the director's seat.

[Bennett] Guillermo was
kind of like,

"I'll do it.
I love 'The Hobbit.'

Let me do 'The Hobbit.'"

And so, for Peter Jackson...

[McWeeny] It was a perfect solution.
"I produce it.

I still get to control
what it is, but I don't do it."

And finally, in 2008,
Warner Bros. announced

that Guillermo del Toro

would be directing
"The Hobbit."

And del Toro was about
to learn why Peter Jackson

was so insistent
on passing the reins.

[Foot] Initially it was good,

but then you kind of realized
how much work is involved,

and it becomes
quite daunting.

With "The Hobbit"
officially announced,

Peter Jackson and
Guillermo del Toro got to work.

Guillermo del Toro was
intending to direct two films.

Originally
we had two scripts.

Many wondered,
"Why two films?"

"The Hobbit," yeah,
was written for children.

I'm not sure of
the exact page numbers,

depending on what version.

"The Hobbit," little.

"Lord of the Rings,"
very large.

There was no need
to stretch them out.

But there was a need,
at least from Warner Bros.

Thanks to "The Hobbit's"
fractured film rights,

several studios were now

taking a piece of the pie.

There was an incentive there.

[Gandalf] There are five of us.

"Oh, we're sharing profits
with five different studios.

If we make two films, then we
could make more of a profit."

Even with the help

of ringers
Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens,

it was
an intimidating prospect.

Taking this tiny book and
stretching it into two films...

That's right, two.

"Oh, God, what do I add?

Is that gonna be enough?"

This tiny book is gonna
have to be stretched.

And stretch they did.

Stretching this
relatively small story

into two large movies

would take, if nothing else,
creative license.

There are a lot of ways
in which they deviate

from the text
very significantly.

It's blown up from this
little adventure story.

[Ure] It just seemed like it was
getting away from Bilbo,

and it was all about elves
and lots of orcs

that weren't really
in the original book, you know.

Characters that were
previously one-line mentions

became central antagonists.

[Thrór] Azog...

[Thrór] ...the Defiler.

[Bennett] The whole storyline
with Azog.

They gave them a back history

with the battle
with the dwarves and Thorin,

and losing his dad.

It felt like that was
just shoehorned in

to add more stakes.

"The Hobbit" didn't need it.

Radagast the Wizard
was another footnote character

that would take a larger role
in the expanded tale.

I was looking for you, Gandalf.
Something's wrong.

There were also
wholly original characters

created just for the films

There are very limited
female characters.

Peter Jackson, he had
to add female characters.

He had to add Tauriel as
a major female character there

in order to have somebody.

Not only would
"The Hobbit" be filled

with relatively
unknown characters,

it would also be filled
with more frames,

because technology
had come a long way

since the credits rolled
on "Return of the King."

As visual effects people,
we want as many frames

as you can possibly get us.

High frame rate, HDR, stereo.

And that's not stereo
in the audio sense.

"The Hobbit" would be filmed
in 3-D,

and Peter Jackson was eager

to test
the technology's potential.

And I was lucky enough
to be employed by Peter

to do a lot of the previous.

We got to work just one-on-one
with Peter,

working out how he was gonna
shoot that in a 3-D way.

And so I was lucky enough
to be involved quite early on,

in terms of Peter's involvement.

But I was also around
when Guillermo was there,

got to go and hear him talk,
and be around Weta

and look at some of the designs
that they came up with.

But let's not forget--

Peter Jackson
wasn't the director.

Guillermo wanted to see
a different world

to what Peter did.

Which, you know,
is completely understandable.

We had conceived of the world,

and we'd done
a lot of concept art.

He had quite a unique take
on Tolkien.

He wanted to make it
more colorful

and wanted to make it sort of
stranger and weirder.

But again,
to be fair,

Peter Jackson
wasn't the director.

But Guillermo's "Hobbit"
was not gonna tie in

with Middle Earth
that had been created by Peter.

I think that would have been
too much of a jump.

We had to go back
to the same place.

Those two have to marry.
It has to be the same world.

But del Toro was
no stranger to the dark.

Guillermo, he's really
into slightly macabre.

Occasionally
a little more than slightly.

He would probably have
brought out

the scarier aspects
of the hobbits.

And when you read
that to a child

there are parts of it
that can be very scary.

[Vincent] Guillermo's take
on "The Hobbit"

was a little more mature.

His version
of fairies and goblins

and otherworldly creatures
is quite adult.

And I know that he's
a huge fan of prosthetics.

There would have been
a lot of prosthetics,

a lot of practical effects
involved in that, for sure.

Two years after
announcing "The Hobbit,"

and several false starts,

MGM were still hemorrhaging
millions a month.

Millions that should be
going into production.

For various reasons
there were delays.

And when Guillermo finally
after two years realizes,

"I'm not gonna be making
this movie any time soon"...

Mr. del Toro had to move on.

It would have been
a different movie.

And in May of 2010
it was official.

Guillermo del Toro was
stepping down from the project.

He was already booked
for something else,

and he had to go off
and do that.

I do remember
he was personally disappointed

and upset about it,

and he wouldn't talk
about it for a bit.

If there's bad feelings, they've
been very discreet about it.

But it's not, like, a secret.

It's, like, kind of agree to--
to just move on.

So Warner Bros.

told Peter Jackson
to do the one thing

he really didn't want to do.

"You direct it, or we go do it
with somebody else."

And while Jackson may
have wanted to walk,

he knew he would be
abandoning more than a film.

[Bennett] There was a risk of them

taking it out of New Zealand,

and filming it somewhere else.

And if Peter Jackson
didn't step up,

there was a real risk of it
going elsewhere.

MGM agreed
with Warner Bros.' assessment.

It needed to be
Peter Jackson.

[Gray] And I think he decided
"do it yourself"

was really
the most practical thing.

[McWeeny] He went into it thinking,

"I'm making this
for the studio,

so that
I can have my business

be what my business
is supposed to be."

And it's
a self-preservation thing.

It's basically, "I got to
keep Weta working,

I've got to
keep these doors open,"

which is not the right reason
to make a movie.

Rather than
lead the charge

as he did
on "Lord of the Rings,"

Peter Jackson was being
dragged into "The Hobbit."

And with all the delays so far,
there was no time to waste.

It was pretty much just get up
and start going.

With Peter Jackson
at the helm,

"The Hobbit" went from
preproduction purgatory

to being fast-tracked,

as production finally
got the green light.

Lucky, for many it was like
getting back in the saddle.

We had the same crew
basically.

It's like coming back
to an old family.

Much of the cast
was back as well.

But shooting a prequel
10 years later

would offer
its own unique challenge.

Yes, well we had to try
and make people look younger.

I think about eight, ten years
everyone had aged.

We used a lot of lifts.

Hugo Weaving, 'cause
his eyebrows had sunk a bit,

so we had everything
pulled back up again.

It was all nice and young.
Or younger.

There are some who
would not deem it wise.

And while
a young and vibrant complexion
worked for some...

hiding behind full makeup...

- He's...
- ...worked for others.

...dead.

[Brophy] My agent rang to ask me
if I was sitting down.

And so I said,
"Yes, I'm sitting down."

And she said, "Well, this is
a bit of a curly one."

That's exactly
what she said.

"They want to know if you
want to come and play a dwarf."

And I thought,
like, as an extra?

I said, "What, like a couple
of days or something?"

She said, "No,
like Nori the dwarf."

Why have we stopped?

The path.
It's disappeared.

I said, "Yeah, of course,
I'd love to."

Put the phone down
and just burst into tears.

Because I kind of knew it
would be an amazing experience.

I felt like the luckiest person
on the planet.

And there were more
orc alumni on their way.

What about their legs?

They don't need those.

Ooh, they look tasty.

My agent rang up and said
they'd been in touch to see

if I'd play
the part of a goblin.

Which meant Stephen Ure

would be ditching his latex

for a computer-generated
upgrade.

The goblin's name
was Grinnah.

Dwarves, Your Malevolence.

With the old guard
toeing the line,

it was time to bring in
some fresh blood.

My name is John Callen.

They asked me to audition
for Radagast.

In the book it simply says
he wears brown,

he's a fire-lighter,

and I thought
he might have an accent,

like people
from the South West of England.

But it wasn't meant to be.

They actually took an actor

who is rather
more well known than me.

Not only was he an actor,

he was a doctor--
Doctor Who.

My name is Sylvester McCoy,

and I played
Radagast the Brown

on "The Hobbit."

Not good.
Not good at all.

I was touring with
the Royal Shakespeare Company

with Ian McKellen.

He was King Lear
and I was the Fool.

And it's kind of a double act,
Shakespearian double act.

Their chemistry was undeniable.

Something's terribly wrong.

Yes?

But remember, he was
no stranger to Peter Jackson,

as Sylvester had been called in
for "Lord of the Rings."

I was actually asked to go and
screen-test for Bilbo Baggins.

And even though that
didn't go Sylvester's way,

Peter decided it was time
to give him another shot.

Jolly good.

It was a bit nerve-racking

'cause I knew I was gonna
put my foot in it.

'Cause I usually
do put my foot in it.

It's one of those things
I tend to do.

But, you know,
he gave me the part.

And while Radagast
didn't go John Callen's way,

there was an even bigger role
up for grabs.

Then they said, "Yes, you know
about Smaug, do you?

The dragon?"

And I said, "Yes."

"Here's a bit.
Try a bit of that."

And so, suddenly, I was being
terribly, terribly evil.

Ha ha ha!

But once again,
John would lose the role

to another famous doctor.

In fact,
a rather strange one.

[Gray] Benedict Cumberbatch
played Smaug,

and he studied, like,
how would a dragon move?

Which, you know, I really don't
know how he did that research,

because, you know, I don't know
if he studied

Komodo dragons
or lizards.

Meanwhile, John Callen

was taking things
in stride.

I'll probably be unemployed
for the rest of my life.

Down but not out,
John told his agent

to check one last time.

[Callen] A week later she rang
me and told me I'd been cast.

So there we are.

But even though
it wasn't the voice of Smaug...

I played the old deaf dwarf
Óin in "The Hobbit."

Here you go.

And then there was
the matter of the burglar.

To find the occupant
of the hole in the ground,

they simply looked around
"The Office."

I knew Martin from,
you know, "The Office."

I watched some of "The Office,"
and I thought he was great.

I mean,
Martin Freeman's amazing.

- He's amazing.
- Martin Freeman's very funny.

It was very well suited
to the character.

They're infested with parasites.
It's a terrible business.

I wouldn't risk it,
I really wouldn't.

Casting was continuing,

but with the dwarves
filing in one by one,

things were
still moving slowly.

They were very behind because
Peter had only just taken over.

So it was a lot harder
than "Lord of the Rings."

The human body
can only carry so much stress,

and when it reaches its limit,
it breaks.

Peter was taken ill...

And had to go to hospital.
It was very sudden.

[King] Peter was fine,

but everyone
heaved a sigh of relief.

We got
six extra weeks of prep,

which benefited all departments
on the movie.

You know,
and Peter was fine.

He was in hospital,
he had an operation,

and was resting at home.

'Cause I went round
to his house

and we had a big meeting
on his bed.

And Peter Swords King
had some thoughts

regarding the dwarves.

As it said in the book,
the beards are blue and green

and red and stuff, so I started.

I got the beard maker to do

sort of eight shades of green,
eight shades of blue,

from really bright colors
to very natural.

To which
Peter Jackson responded...

[King] And Peter said,
"No, we're not doing that."

I went,
"Oh, okay, fine."

"Put those in the bin,
get rid of them.

We're never gonna be looking
at the green and the blue

and the lilac,
and everything else."

Peter Swords King
was about to learn

there was more than
one way to beard a dwarf.

[King] Richard's company,
Weta,

said they were churning out
a lot of stuff,

you know,
so Peter and I,

between us, loosely designed
the whole movie

whilst I was there
for a few hours.

Despite his condition,

Jackson was running
out of time,

and needed
to finalize his cast.

Casting was continuing,
and there was one chap...

- Dwalin.
- ...who answered the call...

At your service.

Well, me,
your humble narrator.

I got a call, and they said,

"Peter, Fran, and Philippa
would like to meet you."

So I went to meet them.

Peter wasn't feeling well,
so Peter was in the bedroom

and I was in the living room
with Philippa and Fran.

We did the reading.

So he was watching it remotely
from the bedroom.

And it was a dialogue scene.

It was never in the film,
which I have to say

I was a bit upset about
because it was a great scene.

Soon I was
off to New Zealand,

along with the rest
of the hirsute horde,

to find our beards waiting.

Peter revealed each character
one by by one.

The mustache was
in three parts -- one each side,

and a little Hitler mustache
in the middle

that was
all combed in together.

And then curly bits
with actual wire in them.

We were all around the table,
and we were all going,

"Oh, my God, wow,
you look amazing!

You're gonna look incredible."

And then it was your turn--
"Oh, my God!

I've got tattoos
on the top of my head."

The dwarves enjoyed
the moment,

blissfully unaware production
was hanging on by a thread.

They were so under pressure
to get it done.

You need to have the time
to be able to do it properly.

You know, I've heard Richard
actually stay

that as far as
the digital stuff was going,

they were kind of like
laying the tracks

out in front
of the moving train.

As production loomed,

Peter Jackson
remained bedridden.

Peter was taken in ill.

Is he coming back?

We were told it was gonna be
seven weeks

before we started filming,
for him to recover.

We needed those seven
weeks, I can tell you that.

In that time
Peter was recouping,

they trained the whole time.

They got really fit.

Getting prepped and going to
horse-riding lessons

and dialect training.

Did Dwarvish
language classes.

This was taken very, very,
very seriously.

The training was, um--
was tough, yes.

We were doing gym training,
weapons training,

dwarf movement training.

We were being taught
how our walk would be different

from other groups within it.

Rather than stepping lightly
over the ground

like the elves might do,

that we actually
were pushing the ground

ahead of us as we went.

It's his padding,
it's his suit,

it's his armor,
it's his weapons,

it's his jewelry,
it's his shoes.

It's everything.

It's just colossal.

But perhaps the most
colossal design challenge

would be Smaug the dragon.

Luckily, Ra Vincent
had a head start.

As a child, my parents
let me paint my bedroom.

So, I painted this dragon,
Smaug, and a castle landscape.

It was kind of strange
prevision, I guess.

I mean, 30 years later
being the person

who has to
build Smaug's house,

Smaug's environment.

You seem familiar
with my name.

The nine-year-old me
didn't quite understand

that the Smaug
I was going to design

and finish in the future
had that much more gold.

For all the challenges

that Smaug would present,

at least he wouldn't
need a costume.

The same, however, couldn't be
said for the rest of the cast.

They may not be the best fit,
but they'll keep you warm.

Outfitting Thorin's
company would prove

a massive undertaking.

There may be 13 dwarves,

but every time we had to do
a new dwarf costume,

we had to 13 small people
that were scaled down

and 13 stuntmen.

So each time it was a new dwarf
costume, it was 39 costumes,

so it was a huge amount
of work.

Equally huge,
the costumes themselves.

We all had fat suits,
so I had big, puffy arms

here and here and here,

and the same with my thighs
and my calves and my bum,

and certainly there was
a big tummy.

They're huge.

They've got big bellies,
particularly Bombur.

- [Bombur] Aah!
-

The closer they got
to production,

the bigger the dwarves'
costumes became.

I know that my costume
weighed around about 20 k's.

I weighed myself with it
and without it.

Which equates
to about 45 pounds,

and that's without armor.

The problem we had with
the armor for the dwarves

is because they had the suits
and all the padding on them.

We then had to make the armor
so much bigger.

It was heavy, and if you're
wearing it all day

it takes a lot of effort.

And the idea was to make us
more round

so that we seemed
more grounded,

and different from the very
tall, slim elves, for instance.

[Appleton] I think Thranduil's
armor was one of my favorites.

It was very snug-fitting.

The only thing
tighter than Lee Pace's armor

was Matt's deadline.

From the studio
we had deadlines,

that we had to have all the
elves ready by a certain date

and all the uruk-hai ready
and all the orcs

so that they'd
actually believe that,

you know, we could actually
make the films.

Peter Jackson's
medical time-out

bought Ann the time
she needed

to complete Radagast's
unorthodox look.

Radagast had to have
a lot of woodland reference.

They'd done a lot of work.

There were elements that were
really interesting texturally.

I like putting texture
into costumes.

Peter had a very specific
texture in mind for Radagast.

[McCoy] It was his idea to have a nest,
and the birds live there.

And he said, "You know,
you'll have poo down here."

And he said to me, "Yes,

I've always wanted
to cover an actor in "

So I was the actor
that got covered in

And of course I had
my time in the throne room.

You speak of this to anyone,
I'll rip your arms off.

Speaking of thrones...

We had these enormous chairs

because they were made
especially wide for our costume.

And all the chairs
looked the same,

but of course Dwalin's chair,

it should be like
Conan the Barbarian.

You know,
that's what Dwalin's like.

The next day, Weta had taken
the chair away,

and they had pimped it out

with all these skulls
and horns

and animal blankets
and furs

and everything like that,
and I had the Conan chair.

It was so cool.

And while Dwalin
was out taking lives,

Peter Jackson's doctors
had saved his,

and his medical mandate
was now over.

So it was time to roll cameras,
whether they were ready or not.

However...

[Callen] Peter did say...

He actually
kind of admitted

that he wasn't 100% ready
when we started shooting.

So sometimes we'd be called
onto set,

and we would arrive on set,

and there would be Peter
over to one side,

and he would have the script,
and he'd be going through it,

and I was thinking,

"Are you just now working out
how to shoot this?"

A few of us knew
how much trouble we were in.

And it was, like, "Oh, my God,
this is actually quite massive."

Years of delays and
false starts had begun

to eat into "The Hobbit's"
production schedule.

[McTavish] We were
really under the gun.

They had months to prepare

in what normally
would have been a year.

It is being treated as now part
of the overall Warner machine.

There are
dates you have to hit.

"The Lord of the Rings" movies
always opened in December.

Which did not
give them much time.

[McWeeny] It's a much more
condensed process,

and "The Hobbit" is much
more of an assembly line.

An assembly line that
was starting behind schedule.

- Where are you off to?
- Can't stop! I'm already late!

The whole shoot began
with the scene

of Gollum and Bilbo
in the cave.

Gollum's cave
wasn't a cave at all,

but rather a set built
under the gun

by Ra Vincent's
fabrication team.

We had worked through
the night feverishly,

getting the set ready
for the next day,

placing rocks inside
a giant cave,

that was going to be flooded.

And when we came back, true
enough, the cave was flooded,

but all of the polystyrene rocks
all became floating islands.

And we had a matter of hours

before the film crew
showed up in the morning.

Time's up.

While Ra Vincent
salvaged the floating set,

we dwarves had an appointment
at Bag End.

And the scene is obviously me
knocking at the door.

And that door is so iconic.

And so, on action...

And action.

...I knocked, the door opened,

and I stepped through
over the threshold.

Dwalin.

At your service.

And that was really the
beginning of the journey for me.

[McTavish] The scene in Bag End
where we're

all around the table,
we shot that for two weeks.

When it came time to
shoot the dwarves with Gandalf,

Peter Jackson realized
his old bag of tricks

was out of magic.

Shooting "The Hobbit" in 3-D
was a whole new world,

a whole new world of pain.

Quiet on set.

Standby background.

Standby orcs.

Action!

When you're shooting in 2-D,
you can do

what they call
forced perspective.

You can have someone
close to the camera

and someone further away,

to give this idea of Gandalf
being a normal height,

and the hobbits being shorter.

You can't do that in 3-D.

You can see that
someone's closer

and further away from camera.

The depth of field is right
there in front of you.

They had to rethink the way

they were approaching
how they shot things.

The failure of forced
perspective forced Ian McKellen

onto a completely
different set.

They had made an entirely
green screen

smaller version of the set.

So, we're on the live Bag End
set, Ian is in a scaled version.

He was substituted
with a green ball

on the end of a stick.

And we all have earpieces.

And we could hear him.

He was completely separate
from us.

And he walked in and he said,

"I can't remember exactly
who is in what order."

Fíli, Kíli.

"Ah, Sir Ian,
we've thought of that."

Óin, Glóin.

"Now, what we've got here is,

this is a blue sticker,
that's for John.

Dwalin, Balin.

Bifur, Bofur, Bombur.

All these
different colors named

who each one
was around the table.

- Dori, Nori.
- Not my prizewinners, thank you.

- Ori.
- No, thank you.

Only then did Sir Ian say,
"Well, that's very kind of you,

but you do know
I'm color-blind."

They needed
a different way for Sir Ian

to keep track
of all the dwarves,

so they came up
with pictures instead.

Ian had lighting stands
with our faces on them,

that lit up when we spoke,
so that he could look at them.

So with
two different sets

and two different cameras
rolling simultaneously,

how exactly was
this going to work?

[Vincent] Peter and his team
came up with this concept

of slave motion control.

Slave motion control.

Let's turn it over to an expert
to explain, or I could do it?

Slave motion control
involves two cameras,

slaved to each other
on separate sets.

The slave cameras were able
to mirror each other entirely.

And the two cameras
did the same thing,

and they film
at the same time.

So, when you're looking
at the monitor,

it could superimpose
much larger Gandalf.

And if one person went wrong,
the whole thing collapsed.

But it was amazing.

We got better at it,
but that first one,

that took...

ages, yeah.

The process
was exhausting for us all,

and Ian McKellen was
pushed to the edge.

And I really, really felt
for him,

because here all of us
were bouncing off one another.

And it was very difficult
for him

because he likes to be with
the people he's working with.

And I remember hearing
in my ear,

"This is not why
I became an actor."

[King] Everyone loved Ian,
and he was having a bad day.

And he was always incredibly
kind, and I think people

wanted to show
their appreciation for him.

We're gonna have
a Gandalf appreciation day

to say, "You're fantastic,
and you'll be fine."

He was quite humbled by it,
I think.

The crew managed
to lift up our beloved wizard,

but there would be no relief
for the director,

who was now accountable
to not one, but five studios.

They always want everything done
faster, quicker, and cheaper.

You knew that there was
sort of

like a slight panic
in the air.

It was clear
Peter Jackson's head

and his heart
were not on the same page.

[Ure] He didn't start off
wanting to direct,

and I don't think he was
completely ready to do it.

[Bennett] You know, it trickled
down to everybody else.

It affected his personality.

He was more short-tempered.

Sometimes Peter would come,
turn up,

and wouldn't like
what they'd built.

[Callen] I can remember Peter
coming in

and looking around and saying,

"No, we can't shoot it.
This isn't right."

And so whether they'd spend
the morning rebuilding it,

repainting it,
or they'd just say,

okay, we're just gonna replace
this entire set with a CG set.

Which is probably
a little disheartening

if you've spent the whole
night building that set.

Control for Peter Jackson

meant chaos for the schedule.

[Callen] I would go
to the director's assistant

who was working out
the schedules

and say, "Can I get away
this weekend?"

"Oh, don't know, John.
Ask me tomorrow."

Thursday.

"Mm, can I let you know
tomorrow?"

"Is it okay
if I head away now?"

"Ah, well, we are
working tomorrow,

but I don't know
whether you are."

Well, whichever day it was,

"The Hobbit"
had become synonymous

with delays and false starts.

It's not ready yet.

They did my makeup once,
it took four hours,

to get
the whole thing done.

And they say, "Can't wait to see
what you're going to do."

I said, "Me too. I'm really
looking forward to it."

And then, of course...

"Look, we're not gonna
get around to it today.

Can you just take him
out of the makeup?

Sorry."

And I was just...

It does seem like a waste

only to be told 12 hours
into a shooting day,

"We're not gonna
do that anymore,"

or, "We're not gonna
get to it."

One day, all of us
got sent home.

Didn't shoot a thing.

Health troubles
and nonstop production

had weighed heavily
on Peter Jackson.

And that was affecting
his personality on set.

Which us dwarves
would learn the hard way.

We had to run,
and it was on a long lens.

Run!

[McTavish] It was
about 200 meters.

We absolutely legging it.

Just ran.
"Run, run!" Like this.

And we get to the end,
and literally people

are practically
puking on the ground.

Jimmy Nesbitt had pulled
a muscle in his leg.

You know, we're just done,
we're done.

We'd put everything into it,
right?

And Pete just came over
and went,

"Yep, yep, that was good.
Yep, that was good.

Just needs to be faster."

No!
It can't be faster.

That would defy
the laws of physics.

[Brophy] I remember Ian McKellen
saying to Martin Freeman,

"Just do one that likes,
or we'll be here till 2025."

I think it would be wiser
to move on.

If running across
the plains wasn't bad enough,

just wait until
they would get underground.

Yes, the goblin caves.

Dwarves?

[Brophy] There was a day
on the goblin caves

where we had
these flame bars around.

They turned off
the air conditioning,

so that the smoke would set.

I had this sort of
massive costume.

There was nowhere
for the heat to go.

[King] For those guys,
it was always hot.

Their prosthetic,
so much sweat would build up,

their faces
started doing this,

and there would be big bulges.

You could literally take
the fat padding off,

and squeeze it out,
because we would sweat so much.

Disgusting.

And your body is just saying,

"Okay, we're raising
your heart rate,

why aren't you cooling down?"

We had people fainting.

Richard Armitage fainted on set.
You know, it was that hot.

In Middle Earth,

the dwarves
welcomed a warrior's death

on the battlefield.

In the real world,
no one wants to die

wearing a fat suit
and a rubber nose.

They needed a solution.

They put air conditioning
in the costumes.

That was another suit
you had on,

which were a huge network
of water tubes,

when we weren't filming.

Ice water was pumped
around their bodies.

Then you had, like, three or
four layers of costume on top.

The dwarvish AC units
were still a work in progress,

and it did yield better results
for some more than others.

But that didn't make them
any lighter.

Somebody was saying, "Oh, all
this kit is so heavy, isn't it?"

And then Peter,
in his black tent,

just leaned over
and grabbed his microphone.

"Yes, it is hot,
and it is heavy,

but let me tell you,
if you had been a soldier

in the First World War,
in the trenches,

you would have
been carrying twice the weight,

and you would have been
a lot hotter."

And we all just looked
at each other.

And then out of that
quiet moment,

we heard Sir Ian McKellen,
who simply said,

"Yes, they would have been...

while the generals sat
in their tents

telling them
all what to do, Peter."

But we're not at war.
What Ian said is quite right.

We're not at war.
We're making a film.

Brilliant.

The next day Pete came
in full World War I costume

with a pack on his back,

with a rifle, webbing,
the ammunition.

Like a 70-pound pack.

But as Ian said, he's only gonna
wear it for a day,

which he did only
wear it for a day.

But at this point in filming,

we had many more shoot days
ahead of us.

And for some in the cast,
there was a looming uncertainty

about what was in store for
those coming days and months.

Peter never makes what he's
feeling evident to the actors.

I was aware of it, certainly,
because I knew him very well.

I worked with him for, you know,
27 years at that point.

But only a month
into shooting,

the dwarf department
would descend into disarray

when Rob Kazinsky,
playing Fíli,

and Peter Jackson
had some,

well, shall we say,
creative differences.

The English guy they cast
as Fíli

thought he knew it all.

They were doing a scene
sitting around a campfire.

He kept
getting his lines wrong.

[King] And he just said to
Peter, "Oh, it doesn't matter.

We'll just fix it in ADR.
I'll fix it in post."

"They can ADR our lines in post.
I don't need to know my lines."

That's a pretty bold call,
pretty bold call.

[King] Peter was furious.

[King] There was steam
coming out of his ears.

He said, "Shut this set."

And so we stopped shooting
that scene for the day,

and he was rushed out.

He was almost escorted out.

And the following morning,
he was gone.

It was like, "What?"

We appear to be
one dwarf short.

And as you might imagine,

this incident created
some unexpected ripples.

You know, it was a hard day
for us all

because we'd all got
to know each other.

But we didn't want to
have it happen to us,

let's put it that way.

I'd known Peter
for a long time,

but I'd never seen him
that excited.

He got cross, and the person
who was involved

who was making him cross
wasn't seen after that.

It's so sad to talk about it,
when you think about

how wonderful the experience
was with "Lord of the Rings."

He just always seemed
so happy to be there.

It was not the case
with "The Hobbit."

For Peter Jackson,
the only saving grace was that

at least he only had two movies
to worry about this time.

Uh, right?

Oh, my God.