The Two Towers hits $42 Million on opening day! Plus, Peter Jackson speaks!

Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers: The central film in trilogy garners $26 Million domestically and $16 Million internationally, breaking records in eight territories! The film has also received 2 Golden Globe nominations, for BEST PICTURE and BEST DIRECTOR - Peter Jackson!
New Line Cinema’s Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the central film in Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy, took the global box office by storm on its first day in theaters Wednesday, garnering an estimated $42 million one-day worldwide gross - $26 million domestic and $16 million international – up nearly 45% from last year’s one day worldwide gross of $29 million. The film broke all single day records in Denmark and opening day records in seven other international territories, it was announced today by Rolf Mittweg New Line Cinema’s president and chief operating officer, worldwide distribution and marketing.

Domestically, the film surpassed the opening day receipts of its predecessor by 44% (last year, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring opened at $18 million). The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers drew moviegoers as early as Tuesday night when fans lined up for sold-out midnight showings at 3,622 theaters. The film is the second highest Wednesday opener ever (behind 1999’s Star Wars: The Phantom Menace at $28.5M). Internationally, the film posted a $16 million overall gross, up 45% from last year (Fellowship bowed to an $11 million overall opening day internationally). The film is playing on nearly 12000 screens worldwide, 6633 screens domestic and and 5,000 internationally.

“Seeing increases in major territories speaks to the emerging worldwide phenomenon built around this trilogy,” Mittweg said. “This powerful response also illustrates the true universality of Tolkien’s themes and the broad reach of Jackson’s vision.” He adds, “We’re astounded at these numbers. For a three-hour film that is central in a trilogy to open this way is energizing and tremendously exciting.”

Opening day-and-date in numerous global territories, the film broke all single day records in Denmark, and marked the highest opening day ever in Germany, Austria, Finland, Holland, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden and Norway. Further, the film posted increases from last year’s opening day of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in all territories, up as high as 98% in Belgium.

For more information, clips, trailers, news, and photos from the film,

In addition to the record breaking numbers TTT is generating, Entertainment Weekly recently sat down with director, Peter Jackson, to hash out some of the details about making the film:


''The Two Towers'' was much, much harder because of the simple fact that ''Fellowship'' was a linear story. It started with Frodo and followed him all the way through. The decisions were simple: What do you leave in and what do you cut out? You didn't change the order of things; you just kind of followed the plot. In this film, because we have three different plot lines branching out, we had a lot of flexibility over how long we stayed with a particular plot before cutting to the other one. For example, in the last cut, [the CG creature] Gollum appears in the second scene of the film. But we did edits earlier this year where he didn't appear for half an hour. It was much more fun and much more of a creative exercise this year.

What was the most painful thing to cut from this one?

Not a great deal was cut. There's not very much [extra footage] with Frodo and Sam because there's so much of Gollum in each of their scenes, and because those shots are so difficult to do, you don't really do Gollum unless you absolutely know that it's going to be in the movie. [We cut] the whole scene where Merry and Pippin drink the Ent draught. I'll definitely put that on the DVD because it's so funny.

Along with the CG, there are a considerable amount of ambitious live action sequences, such as the Battle of Helm's Deep. How was it shooting those?

Viggo bore the brunt of the Helm's Deep battle. He had 14 weeks of night shoots in the rain and in the winter, and he was just amazing. He got whacked in the mouth with an Orc sword during one of the fight scenes and his front tooth got snapped off at the root. While any other actor would obviously immediately say, ''Take me to my trailer! Oh my God, my tooth! Stop, stop!'' Viggo just picked up this tooth. He was holding it in his hand and he goes, ''Gimme me some superglue. I'll just glue it back on and we'll keep fighting.'' We literally had to drag him to the car to go get some surgery and dental work done.

What about filming ''The Hobbit,'' Tolkien's prequel to this trilogy?

I can honestly tell you that [New Line has] never, ever discussed it with me. I've never had a single ''Hobbit'' conversation with anybody from the studio, and I've been working with them for five years now. But I know they've picked up the ''Hobbit'' production rights as part of the ''Lord of the Rings'' package -- essentially to keep anybody else from making a ''Hobbit'' film. The last thing that New Line wanted was to be spending all of this money on ''Lord of the Rings'' movies, and then have a cheesy ''Hobbit'' film get put out that somebody else makes.

Would you consider doing it eventually?

It would be a difficult decision. Difficult in the sense that I have other films that I want to make. I have three or four other ideas that I'm looking forward to doing one day. It would also be tough for me to think of somebody else doing it. But on the other hand, I'd like to pay 12 bucks and go see the ''Hobbit'' that somebody else made and avoid ME doing all the work.

for the entire interview at Entertainment Weekly!

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