johnstonmr | (no subject)

Peter Jackson, director of the upcoming third Lord of the Rings film, The Return of the King, told the Ain't It Cool News Web site that he reluctantly excised Saruman (Christopher Lee) from the last film in the trilogy. "We have decided to save the Saruman sequence for the DVD," Jackson told the site.

Jackson added, "The problem is that the sequence was originally shot for The Two Towers, as it is in the book. Since The Two Towers couldn't sustain a seven-minute 'wrap' after Helm's Deep, we thought it would be a good idea to save it for the beginning of the Return of the King. The trouble is, when we viewed various ROTK cuts over the last few weeks, it feels like the first scenes are wrapping last year's movie, instead of starting the new one. We felt it got ROTK off to an uncertain beginning, since Saruman plays no role in the events of ROTK. ...

"We reluctantly made the decision to save this sequence for the DVD," Jackson said. "The choice was made on the basis that most people will assume that Saruman was vanquished by the Helm's Deep events and Ent attack. We can now crack straight into setting up the narrative tension of ROTK, which features Sauron as the villian." Return of the King opens Dec. 17.

Also: There will be an Underworld 2.