New Line casts hobbit as hero; Lord of the Rings battles Harry Potter.(New Line Cinema movie release)

Crain's New York Business, July, 2001 by Souccar, Miriam Kreinin

Never before has so much depended on a creature named Frodo Baggins. At least, not in this world. New Line Cinema, in its biggest and riskiest project ever, brings Frodo, the hobbit who saves humanity in The Lord of the Rings, to the big screen Dec. 19. The movie series based on J.R.R. Tolkien's classic trilogy marks the first time that a studio and a big group of global distributors have placed a bet on three $90 million movies at once.

Their success or failure will be the talk of the film world for years. ``The Lord of the Rings trilogy is, without a doubt, one of the most immense and magnificent projects in the history of film,'' says David Imhoff, executive vice president and head of worldwide licensing and merchandising at New Line, based in...

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