How did audiences across the world respond to the films of The Lord of the Rings? This book presents findings from the largest film audience project ever undertaken, drawing from 25,000 questionnaire responses and a wide array of other materials. Contributors use these materials to explore a series of widely speculated questions: why is film fantasy important to different kinds of viewers? Through marketing, previews and reviews, debates and cultural chatter, how are audiences prepared for a film like this? How did fans of the book respond to its adaptation on screen? How do people choose their favorite characters? How was the films' reception shaped by different national and cultural contexts? The answers to these questions shed fresh light on the extraordinary popularity of The Lord of the Rings and provide important new insights into the global reception of cinema in the twenty-first century. How did audiences across the world respond to the films of The Lord of the Rings? This book presents findings from the largest film audience project ever undertaken, drawing from 25,000 questionnaire responses and a wide array of other materials. Contributors use these materials to explore a series of widely speculated questions: why is film fantasy important to different kinds of viewers? Through marketing, previews and reviews, debates and cultural chatter, how are audiences prepared for a film like this? How did fans of the book respond to its adaptation on screen? How do people choose their favorite characters? How was the films¿ reception shaped by different national and cultural contexts? The answers to these questions shed fresh light on the extraordinary popularity of The Lord of the Rings and provide important new insights into the global reception of cinema in the twenty-first century. List of Tables and Figure vii Acknowledgments ix List of Contributors xi Introduction: Researching The Lord of the Rings: Audiences and Contexts 1 Martin Barker, Kate Egan, Stan Jones, and Ernest Mathijs 1. The Lord of the Rings: Selling the Franchise 21 Janet Wasko 2. An Avalanche of Attention: The Prefiguration and Reception of The Lord of the Rings 37 Daniel Biltereyst, Ernest Mathijs, and Philippe Meers 3. Promotional Frame Makers and the Meaning of the Text: The Case of The Lord of the Rings 59 Breda Luthar 4. What Do Female Fans Want? Blockbusters, The Return of the King, and U.S. Audiences 69 Barbara Klinger 5. The Books, the DVDs, the Extras, and Their Lovers 83 Kate Egan and Martin Barker 6. Understanding Disappointment: The Australian Book Lovers and Adaptation 103 Sue Turnbull 7. Involvement in The Lord of the Rings: Audience Strategies and Orientations 111 Lothar Mikos, Susanne Eichner, Elizabeth Prommer, and Michael Wedel 8. Global Flows and Local Identifications? The Lord of the Rings and the Cross-National Reception of Characters and Genres 131 Giselinde Kuipers and Jeroen De Kloet 9. The Functions of Fantasy: A Comparison of Audiences for The Lord of the Rings in Twelve Countries 149 Martin Barker 10. Beyond Words? The Return of the King and the Pleasures of the Text 181 Sue Turnbull 11. Heroism in The Return of the King 191 Jose Javier Sanchez Aranda, Joseba Bonaut, and Maria del Mar Grandio 12. The Fantasy of Reading: Moments of Reception of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 199 Daniel Biltereyst and Sofie Van Bauwel 13. Understanding Text as Cultural Practice and as Dynamic Process of Making 207 Lothar Mikos 14. Our Methodological Challenges and Solutions 213 Martin Barker, Ernest Mathijs, and Alberto Trobia Appendix: The World Data Set 241 Notes 245 Bibliography 277 Index 291