That Time Bob Weinstein Told Peter Jackson to Kill a Hobbit

Jill Pantozzi | January 6th, 2016

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil.”

My pal Rebecca Pahle put together a list of 20 Epic Facts About ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Trilogy for MentalFloss As someone who was SUPER into The Lord of the Rings trilogy and obsessively watched the extended editions plus all their special features, I knew most of the trivia. Lots of people who were almost cast, that time Viggo Mortensen broke his toe while filming, etc. But this one was a surprise to me.

The quote comes via The Times UK, who had this excerpt from Peter Jackson’s biography (put together by Brian Sibley). It’s Jackson discussing a talk he had with producer Bob Weinstein:

At one point Bob said: ‘So there’s these four hobbits, right? And, you know, they go on this adventure and none of the hobbits die?’ Well, no, we explained. Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin all survive . . . ‘Well, we can’t have that,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to kill a hobbit! I don’t care which one; you can pick — I’m not telling you who it should be: you pick out who you want to kill, but we’ve really got to kill one of those hobbits!’ In situations like that, you just nod and smile and say, ‘Well, that’s something we can consider.’

You monster.

Thankfully, Jackson ignored that directive. Learn more interesting LotR movie trivia at MentalFloss.