If you want a preview of what will likely win best picture in any given year at the Academy Awards, be sure to be there to see the director category winner announced. Although this is no guarantee of success, in the case of the 76th Academy Awards, held on February 29, 2004 at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, it was a perfect barometer: Peter Jackson won the Oscar for directing “The Lord of the Heavens.” Rings: The Return of the King.”
It was the tenth Oscar of the night for the film, and the second for Jackson; she also won (with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens) that night for her adapted screenplay. Moments later, it would get its third, winning the award for best film. Jackson, who had been nominated once before for “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” in 2002, beat out veteran directors like Peter Weir and Clint Eastwood and first-time nominees Sofia Coppola and Fernando Meirelles alike. But as with many of the awards that “The Return of the King” picked up that night, the overwhelming feeling was that they were being awarded for the entire sum of the “LOTR” films, which had been made at the same time.
Jackson accepted the director's award from Tom Cruise and then gave his speech. “Wow,” he began. “Many thanks to the academy. You're giving us an incredibly overwhelming night and we really appreciate it. [New Line executives] Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne, God, you did the riskiest thing anyone has ever done in this industry, and I'm so happy for you because it paid off. Their collaboration, partnership and support gave me the most incredible work experience of my life…. I just want to thank two very special people: When I was 8 years old I made movies at home with a Super 8 camera that my mom and dad had bought me. And they supported me throughout the years. And they died in recent years; They didn't see these movies made. So to Bill and Joan, thank you.”
Making the trilogy was a large-scale undertaking. As Empire magazine originally reported in 2002, the film's schedule spanned 274 days over 15 months, featured 350 sets and a crew of 2,000. “I'm not in shape, but I'm the turtle guy who can keep going,” Jackson said then. “Mentally, there were days when my brain felt like it was mush, I felt like I had no imagination left. When your imagination starts to block, you panic. Honestly, there were days where I would just turn to the actors and hope they weren't as tired as I was and point the camera at them, hoping we were getting good things.”
Meanwhile, Coppola, nominated for the first time, was able to go home safe because her film “Lost in Translation” earned her an Oscar for original screenplay. Weir, who directed “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” was in his fourth directing nomination (he had also been nominated for 1985’s “Witness,” 1989’s “Dead Poets Society” and “The Truman Show.” 1998). ). He would become the first Australian to receive an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards in 2022.
Eastwood's “Mystic River” was the first time he was nominated as a director but did not win the award; He already had an Oscar for directing “Unforgiven” (1992) and would win another for directing “Million Dollar Baby” that same year. As for Meirelles, a native of Brazil, “City of God” is his only Oscar nomination so far.
