Peter Jackson Considered Hypnosis to Erase ‘The Lord of the Rings’ From His Mind
Director Peter Jackson earned universal praise for The Lord of the Rings. The trilogy took him all the way to the Academy Awards, earning three Oscars for himself on the screen adaptations of J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantastical adventure. However, Jackson admitted that he considered getting hypnosis to forget The Lord of the Rings for a very specific reason.
Peter Jackson went mainstream with ‘The Lord of the Rings’
Jackson has feature directing credits that reach years before The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. It all started with 1987’s Bad Taste, which remains a cult classic to this day. He also grossed out audiences around the world with the hilarious gorefest called Dead Alive.
However, The Lord of the Rings is what truly put Jackson in another league. It wasn’t an easy feat to build the expansive Tolkien world on the silver screen to the satisfaction of fans around the world. Jackson didn’t fear exploring other familiar characters with 2005’s King Kong and The Lovely Bones. However, he would later dive deeper with The Hobbit trilogy, but the films earned less than stellar reviews.
Peter Jackson considered having hypnosis to forget ‘The Lord of the Rings’
The Hollywood Reporter interviewed Jackson, and naturally The Lord of the Rings came into the discussion. However, no one expected the filmmaker to wish that he could forget the trilogy, but he had his reasons. Jackson was so serious about it, he nearly pursued hypnosis to erase his mind of the movies.
“When we did The Lord of the Rings movies I always felt I was the unlucky person who never got to see as a coming-out-of-the-blue film,” Jackson said. “By the time there were screening I was immersed in it for five or six years. It was such a loss for me not to be able to see them like everyone else.”
Jackson continued: “I actually did seriously consider going to some hypnotherapy guy to hypnotize me to make me forget about the films and the work I had done over the last six or seven years so I could sit and enjoy them. I didn’t follow through with it, but I did talk to [British mentalist] Derren Brown about that, and he thought he could do it.”
The trilogy’s universe expands with ‘The Rings of Power’
Jackson worked hard on The Lord of the Rings, which would gross almost $3 billion at the worldwide box office. Additionally, the movies earned 10 Academy Awards thanks to their epic scale and extraordinary execution. Jackson is back in the awards spotlight with Get Back, which is a Beatles documentary that earned five Emmy nominations.
The Lord of the Rings is about to return audiences to Tolkien’s world with The Rings of Power. However, the television series brings viewers back many years to the Second Age. It explores the forging of the original rings that allowed the Dark Lord Sauron to begin his domination over Middle-earth. The Rings of Power hits Prime Video on Sept. 2, but Jackson won’t be stepping behind the camera this time around because the studio didn’t follow up with the filmmaker.
