November 19, 2002. Copyright, 2002, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Lord of the Rings: The Twin Towers
By Mark Samms

LONDON, November 19, Graphic News:  Director Peter Jackson is like a fussy artist who can't resist returning to the easel to add little dabs here and there to a work of art most people already regard as virtually perfect.

He and his main stars spent 15 months filming The Lord of the Rings trilogy, for the most part in sequence. When the first instalment was released to worldwide acclaim a year ago, he could have been forgiven for just sitting back and counting the money.

But not Jackson. Thirteen Academy Award nominations were obviously not enough for him, which is why important members of the cast and crew were summoned to reconvene in New Zealand this year to enhance The Two Towers, which is released next month.

It is said that Jackson began to think of ways of improving the second part of the trilogy after listening to audience reaction to the first. It is strongly rumoured that battle scenes have been beefed up and that the burgeoning passion between Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) and Arwen (Liv Tyler) is set to intensify after the introduction of Lady Eowyn (Miranda Otto).

All this is likely to further enrage Tolkien purists, but moviegoers are promised a three-hour spectacle that seems certain to earn even more than the $315m so far grossed by The Fellowship of the Ring.

And Another Thing É
JRR Tolkien's trilogy was written as a single book. A paper shortage at the time of its original publication led to the decision to publish it in three volumes


Release dates 
December 5: World premiere, New York
December 10: European premiere, Paris
December 13: UK premiere, London
December 18: U.S., UK, France (general release), Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey
December 20: Panama, Portugal
December 25: New Zealand
December 26: Australia, Iceland
December 28: Taiwan
January 1: Argentina, Brazil
January 10: Estonia
January 12: Egypt
January 16: Czech Republic, Italy, Slovenia
January 23: Hong Kong, Russia