The Lord of the Rings Ring" and part of "The Two Towers". A three-issue comic book version of the movie was also published in Europe (but not printed in English), with illustrations by Luis Bermejo. When Bakshi's investors shied away of financing the second film that would complete the story, the remainder of the story was covered in an animated television special by Rankin-Bass. Stylistically, the two segments are very different. The second and more commercially successful adaptation was Peter Jackson's live action "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, produced by New Line Cinema and released in three instalments as "" (2001), "" (2002),
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II to the effect. Water was chosen as the first graphical component of "The Battle for Middle-earth II" to take advantage of DirectX 9 programmable shaders. These additions were part of an overall Electronic Arts strategy to continue the "Lord of the Rings" experience that began with the trilogy film series. As cinematic director of "The Battle for Middle-earth II", Richard Taylor was responsible for designing the game's opening and closing sequences, as well as campaign and mission introductions and endings. As the first Electronic Arts video game to be given free rein on material from "The Lord of the Rings"