Visit Middle‑earth™ with these iconic ‘The Lord of the Rings’ film tours.
It only took a year and a half to film both ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’ trilogies, but the legacy these films have left behind has lasted for decades.
The films were a remarkable achievement for a niche film industry, which rallied itself as if on steroids to create more 150,000 objects and produce the ground-breaking special effects needed to create a cinematic version of Middle‑earth™.
And much of this output is still on display.
See the filming location for The Shire at Hobbiton™ Movie Set Tours(opens in new window). The former film set comprises forty-four hobbit holes, a millhouse, and a Green Dragon Inn. To mark the attraction’s 20th anniversary, two hobbit holes have been excavated and authentically decorated by illustrators and designers who worked on the films.
Head to the Wētā Workshop (Wellington) or Wētā Unleashed (Auckland) for a look at how the films were made. For attractions that began not for the purposes of making money but simply to have somewhere to send fans who turned up to Wētā Workshop's studio, these tours have grown quickly to become a global phenomenon, ranked alongside Warner Bros tours. On a Wētā Workshop tour, you'll catch a glimpse inside the studio to see props being made for upcoming films. On a Wētā Unleashed tour, expect some light humour – mostly from ‘Jeff’, an orc-like animatronic that took 60 people almost a year to build but, going by appearances, a lot less time to script for jokes.
