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 Return of the King run. In the US and Canada, it is the 27th highest-grossing film, the highest-grossing 2003 film, and the highest-grossing instalment in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. The film set an opening Wednesday record with $34.5 million. This record was first surpassed by "Spider-Man 2" and ranks as the seventh largest Wednesday opening. The film opened a day earlier for a midnight showing and accounted for about $8 million. This was nearly twice the first-day total of "" — which earned $18.2 million on its opening day in 2001 — as well as a significant increase over "" — which