The Lord of the Rings is an immensely popular blockbuster movie franchise. Thanks to the adaptation from the novels, the franchise continues to grow in popularity with newcomer audiences discovering the trilogy this very day. However, we almost got a new movie adaptation for the films from development studio Traveller’s Tale. The failed pitch was one that cost the studio a million dollars although the demo showcased today still looks like it held up quite well, years later.
If you don’t recall, Traveller’s Tale is a development studio that is best known for its line of Lego games. In fact, the studio has made a consistent release of Lego games for over a decade now and it doesn’t appear that they are slowing down anytime soon. However, back in 2008, the development team decided that they wanted to break away from just doing Lego titles and offer their take on a Hobbit video game in conjunction with the release of the films that were due to come out.
In order to showcase what was possible with the studio, the development team opted to bring out a pitch demo featuring a few select moments from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Showcased in a new video uploaded featuring Jon Burton, we got a look at the pitch demo used for Peter Jackson and the then-director Guillermo Del Toro. This pitch offered a few details on what the studio was capable of and it turns out that the game pitch actually cost the studio a million dollars. At the time, the pitch seemed to be positive, but trouble came when the pitch reached Warner Bros who decided that the game shouldn’t be a direct movie adaptation, but instead a game set within the same universe.
As a result, the game was likely scrapped in favor of Shadow of Mordor. Still, the visuals and gameplay looked like it might have been quite the detailed gameplay adventure if it was able to release into the market. Unfortunately, all we have right now is the demo footage which you see embedded above.
