Saruman appears as a minor villain in "Lego Dimensions", in which he allies himself with main antagonist Lord Vortech. Asteroid 418532 Saruman was named after the wizard and in honor of actor Christopher Lee. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 25 September 2018 (). [a] The volume published as "The Silmarillion" in 1977 contains four books in addition to the "Quenta Silmarillion". The last of these—"Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"—covers Saruman's earlier history, but was written after "The Lord of the Rings". Note: For ease of reference, citations of "Letters" include
The Lord of the Rings (film series) the film and wanted to know more." Afterwards, he read a tie-in edition of the book during a twelve-hour train journey from Wellington to Auckland when he was seventeen. In 1995, Jackson was finishing "The Frighteners" and considered "The Lord of the Rings" as a new project, wondering "why nobody else seemed to be doing anything about it". With the new developments in computer-generated imagery following "Jurassic Park", Jackson set about planning a fantasy film that would be relatively serious and feel real. By October, he and his partner Fran Walsh teamed up with Miramax Films boss Harvey Weinstein to