From Book to Script

This article is about the documentary from the The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring film Extended Edition. For the documentary from the The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King film Extended Edition, see From Book to Script: Forging the Final Chapter.

From Book to Script is the second documentary in the Extended Edition appendix "From Book to Vision" of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. (An equivalent documentary about the second film has the same title, in "Part Three: The Journey Continues".)

Peter Jackson, co-writer Philippa Boyens, and many actors and crew members recount the long process of adapting the text of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring for film, a project that had begun in 1997. This involved countless adjustments of scenes, about a hundred screenplay revisions, and constant reordering of key moments from the story to fit the brevity of a film.

The documentary is followed by "Visualizing the Story".

Personnel featured

• Peter Jackson, director
• Andrew Lesnie, director of photography
• Philippa Boyens, co-writer
• Mark Ordesky, executive producer
• Barrie Osborne, producer
• Rick Porras, co-producer
• Daniel Falconer, conceptual designer
• Alex Funke, director of miniatures photography
• John Gilbert, editor
• Christopher Lee, actor of Saruman
• Sean Bean, actor of Boromir
• Dominic Monaghan, actor of Merry
• Elijah Wood, actor of Frodo
• John Rhys-Davies, actor of Gimli
• Brian Sibley
• Ian McKellen, actor of Gandalf
• Orlando Bloom, actor of Legolas
• Sean Astin, actor of Sam

The Lord of the Rings film trilogy extended edition appendices

In The Fellowship of the Ring:

Part One: From Book to Vision   •   Part Two: From Vision to Reality

In The Two Towers:

Part Three: The Journey Continues   •   Part Four: The Battle for Middle-earth Begins

In The Return of the King:

Part Five: The War of the Ring   •   Part Six: The Passing of an Age