Although UA found that the film, while financially successful, "failed to overwhelm audiences", Bakshi did begin working on a sequel, and even had some B-roll footage shot. "The Film Book of J.R.R. Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings", published by Ballantine Books on October 12, 1978, still referred to the sequel in the book's inside cover jacket. Indeed, in interviews Bakshi talked about doing "a part two film picking up where this leaves off", and even boasted that the second film could "pick up on sequences that we missed in the first book". Zaentz went so far as to try to stop the Rankin-Bass "The Return of the King" TV special (which was already storyboarded before Bakshi's film came out) from airing, so as to not clash with Bakshi's sequel.