THE RETURN OF THE KING MOVIE

The previous two movies had only won awards in the technical categories, and many saw the third film's Oscar victory as a reward for the entire trilogy. The film also swept the 2004 Academy Awards-it took home all 11 Oscars it was nominated for, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. However, the success of The Return of the King didn't stop with a huge box office take and critical and audience acclaim. The fight for the very existence of Middle-earth was realized via some incredible battle scenes, but also in the deeply emotional final journey of Frodo and Sam, as they worked their way through Mordor to destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. This was the biggest film of the trilogy, both in terms of the scale of the action, the drama of the story, and the $1.14 billion box office gross.

Thankfully, The Return of the King was no disappointment. The previous two films, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, had set a new standard for fantasy moviemaking, vividly bringing JRR Tolkien's classic books to life.

THE RETURN OF THE KING MOVIE

By that point, there was little doubt that the movie was likely to be an huge fnancial success, and unless Jackson had really dropped the ball, audiences were set to love it too. The Return of the King was the third and final part of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, and it arrived in theaters in December 2003.

The return of the king