Enjoying Frodo Baggins surprisingly did not make Elijah Wooden immediately rich.
Wooden, 44, advised Business Insider on the 2025 Texas Movie Awards that his pay for the Lord of the Rings franchise was not huge, regardless of it turning into one of many highest-grossing movie collection of all time.
“As a result of we weren’t making one film after which renegotiating a contract for the subsequent, it wasn’t the form of profitable situation that you can form of relaxation simple for the remainder of your life,” Wooden defined, noting how director Peter Jackson took “an actual gamble” capturing the Rings trilogy concurrently.
With no time between one movie opening and the subsequent one filming, Wooden and his costars by no means had an opportunity to renegotiate salaries based mostly on how field workplace efficiency.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING, Elijah Wooden, 2003, (c) New Line/courtesy Everett Assortment
The Lord of the Rings trilogy in the end grossed a historic $2.9 billion worldwide, which paled compared to the movies’ bold funds of $281 million, on the time.
Wooden performed hobbit Frodo Baggins within the star-studded franchise based mostly on J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels, together with Sean Astin (who performed fellow hobbit Samwise Gamgee), Orlando Bloom (Elven warrior Legolas), Viggo Mortenson (Aragorn, the inheritor of Isildur) and Ian McKellen (Gandalf).
Regardless of making “not huge salaries,” Wooden mentioned, “The advantage of that was that we have been additionally signing up for one thing that was going to be part of our lives ceaselessly.”
Pierre Vinet/New Line Cinema/Kobal/Shutterstock
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A number of Lord of the Rings forged have commented on what they made whereas filming the epic fantasy collection.
Whereas on the Jim and Sam Show in 2018, Astin, 54, revealed he earned round $250,000, which the actor mentioned wasn’t sufficient to cowl his mortgage on a home he had bought earlier than filming began.
In a 2019 interview on The Howard Stern Show, Bloom, 48, mentioned he was paid $175,000 throughout all three motion pictures. “I obtained nothing, nothing, nothing,” the Gran Turismo actor joked with Stern, including the venture was the “biggest present of my life.”
When requested by Enterprise Insider about whether or not he was additionally paid $250,000, Wooden mentioned the sum was not correct and in addition “does not matter.”
“It is such an honor to have been part of these movies, and so they symbolize a few of the greatest experiences of my life,” Wooden mentioned.
