THE LORD OF THE RINGS Studio Originally Wanted Peter Jackson To Kill Off One of the Hobbits — GeekTyrant

The Lord of the Rings is one of the most successful film franchises in history. The fact that it held so closely to the beloved book series and was beautifully made and perfectly cast led to its allure, and are the reasons it holds up so well decades later. But one major story change could have been made, if the studios had gotten their way.

Speaking to IGN (via Gizmodo) about their new Lord of the Rings podcast series titled Friendship Onion, Lord of the Rings trilogy stars Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd (who played Merry and Pippin) talked about a time when pressure from executives above the Lord of the Rings production team wanted to amplify the stakes of the series by killing off one of its four smallest stars.

Monaghan joked about the situation, saying:

“It’s a good job that didn’t happen, because it would have been me. It definitely would have. There’s no way they are killing Frodo and Sam, and the only ones that would be left would be Merry and Pippin. They wouldn’t kill Pippin because Pippin has a really strong story with Gandalf. It would have definitely been me.”

As for why it didn’t happen, the guys give credit to director Peter Jackson. Monaghan added:

“I think Pete quite rightly was like, ‘This is a luminary piece of written work, and we need to stick close to the text.’ So, he stuck by his guns. Yeah, I’m thankful that didn’t happen.”

So are we! All of our favorite Hobbits survived until the end, and it surely commented on the enduring spirit of the characters we got to know and love from the tale.