Beatles wanted to make "Rings" film

John Lennon wanted to play the grasping, thieving creature Gollum in a 1960s Beatles version of the "Lord of the Rings", New Zealand film director Peter Jackson says.

Jackson, whose own version of the first book in the fantasy trilogy, "The Fellowship of the Ring" won four Oscars this week, told Wellington's Evening Post newspaper that the Beatles plan fell flat when author J.R.R. Tolkien rejected the plan.