Special effects of The Lord of the Rings film series Later on, the scenes were merged using digital effects. Besides Weathertop, many of the other scenes in the Lord of the Rings trilogy were shot in this way, first by filming the scenery or set miniatures, then the actors on a studio set, and merging the two together. An example of this is in the Mines of Moria, when the Fellowship was fighting the Cave-troll in Balin's Tomb, and again when the Fellowship is on the Khazad-Dum stairs and bridge. Gandalf has his own particular scene with computer graphics as he grapples with the Balrog as they fall to their
The Lord of the Rings (film series) negotiate with Saul Zaentz who had held the rights to the book since the early 1970s, pitching an adaptation of "The Hobbit" and two films based on "The Lord of the Rings". Negotiations then stalled when Universal Studios offered Jackson a remake of "King Kong". Weinstein was furious, and further problems arose when it turned out Zaentz did not have distribution rights to "The Hobbit"; United Artists, which was in the market, did. By April 1996, the rights question was still not resolved. Jackson decided to move ahead with "King Kong" before filming "The Lord of the Rings", prompting Universal