Fran Walsh Filmmaker 1959
One of New Zealand's most successful film-makers and co-producer of New Zealand's highest-earning film franchise
The first movie Fran Walsh worked on with her partner Sir Peter Jackson was an R-rated Muppet Show knockoff called Meet the Feebles in 1989. In this puppet-splatter flick, a rabbit contracts a life-threatening STD and a hippo wields a machine gun. There was little to suggest that this was the work of future Academy Award winners.
But together Walsh and Jackson, along with their frequent collaborator Philippa Boyens, made movie history. Now, over 15 years after its final instalment, it's easy to forget how massive and ambitious a project their Lord of the Rings trilogy really was. Three giant, effects-heavy blockbusters, all filmed and released consecutively.
It could have gone terribly wrong. Instead, they were a triumph in every way; critical, technical and financial. All up the trilogy won 17 Academy Awards out of the 30 they were nominated for.
