The re-release of the LOTR trilogy shows Hollywood’s disconnect with audiences

First released in 2001, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is an epic high-adventure fantasy film that grossed over $900 million at the box office. The sequels, The Two Towers (2002) and The Return of the King (2003), grossed more than $2 billion combined.

Re-showing lucrative and popular films is a tradition that goes back generations, starting with classics like “The Wizard of Oz,” “Gone with the Wind” and “Casablanca.” Before television and then video recorders, the theater was the only place to rewatch what you saw on the big screen in your neighborhood.

But studio executives have realized that viewers find it more enjoyable to see a movie more than once (or twice or more!) – sometimes years or decades apart. Holiday or anniversary reissues have proven profitable. With the advent of IMAX technology and digital restoration capabilities, it’s easier to find an excuse to remake some classics.

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Ian McKellen, left, plays Gandalf opposite Elijah Wood’s Frodo, in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s book. (New Line/WireImage/Getty Images)

In over a hundred years of Hollywood filmmaking, more than 25,000 films have been produced. Today’s major studios produce between 200 and 300 titles each year. That may sound like a lot, but it’s a significant decline from a century ago when more than 800 films were produced every 12 months.

Although rating movies is subjective, the vast majority of them are forgettable, but some are memorable, and not always because we like them. It’s both interesting and revealing that, according to the Internet Movie Database IMDb, of the 10 worst films of all time, all but one were made in this century (“RoboCop 3”). Conversely, of the top 10, only four were made in the last quarter century – two of which had the Lord of the Rings title.

Keep in mind that British author JRR Tolkien wrote his famous series in the early to mid-1900s.

One of Hollywood’s most curious and perplexing habits is the studios’ stubborn reluctance to make more family-friendly movies. Instead, they insist on making films that offend our moral sensibilities, despite evidence that cleaner, more wholesome films would perform better than the garbage they make. We are bombarded with dark stories filled with unnecessary profanity and gratuitous doses of sexuality and violence. Instead of good, we get garbage.

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Since it costs more to see a movie today than it did generations ago, it’s misleading to look at the highest-grossing films in history to see what struck a chord with audiences. Instead, look at the movies that sold the most tickets. Of the top 10 titles watched by the most people, there are six of them Solid family fare: “Gone with the Wind”, “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope”, “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial”, “The Sound of Music”, “The Ten Commandments” and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” in 1937.

The seventh, “Jaws,” scared a lot of kids and beachgoers alike, but was still relatively tame compared to today’s shows. There is not a single “R” rated movie on the list.

So why don’t we make more of what seems to work? This disconnect is something I’ve seen in three decades of working at Focus on the Family, a global family assistance organization. We hear from countless mothers and fathers hungry for helpful and inspiring films. That’s why we’ll be releasing our first children’s animated film in theaters next fall: “Adventures in the Odyssey: A Journey into the Impossible.” It is the original story of a long-running children’s radio program.

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Of course, movies reflect culture, but they also reveal the hearts and minds of those who run the studios and script the stories being told. You may not know the name Louis R. Foster, but you’re probably familiar with the movie he won an Oscar for writing: “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” starring Jimmy Stewart and directed by Frank Capra.

English actor Bernard Hill played the hero Theoden, King of Rohan, in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. He died on May 5, 2024, at the age of 79. (PictureLux/Hollywood Archive/Alamy Stock Photo)

Stewart credited the classic film about an idealistic young senator who fights corruption in the D.C. swamp with shaping his career and helping him see how Strong and moral personalities It can positively impact the world. Foster personally embodied these ideals, loved America, his wife and family, and dreamed up the story. Because of that one story, Stewart pursued others like it — including “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.”

One man’s beautiful mind helps make other people’s minds more beautiful as well. Everything affects everything else.

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There’s a reason why the Apostle Paul, who called himself the “Chief of Sinners,” urged people to be careful about what they watched and read. Obviously there were no movies 2000 years ago, but there were plenty of other things competing for attention that influenced human behavior. This is why Paul wrote: “Whatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are good, if there is anything excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.”

Of course, movies reflect culture, but they also reveal the hearts and minds of those who run the studios and script the stories being told.

If we truly wanted to reclaim the culture, we would encourage the production of more films like the Lord of the Rings trilogy that embody these same virtues: hope over fear, good over evil, and the importance of friendship, loyalty, and sacrifice.

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In his 1954 New York Times review of The Fellowship of the Ring, poet and essayist W. H. Auden praised the British writer, noting that his “invention is tireless.” He then added: “Mr. Tolkien is fortunate to have an astonishing gift for naming and a fine and wonderful eye for description… No novel I have read in the last five years has given me more pleasure than The Fellowship of the Ring.”

Hollywood would be doing all of us (and its own pockets) a favor if it sought to emulate the same traits that screenwriters have when sifting through scripts and stories on the big screen.

Click here to read more from Paul Batura