Fans celebrate 'Lord of Rings' world premiere

New Zealand’s capital lived up to its “Wellywood” nickname today as thousands of fans lined streets to fete stars of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy ahead of the world premiere of the blockbuster final instalment.

The streets of Wellington were festooned with posters – one of them eight storeys tall – of characters from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Grandmothers in deck chairs, kids in character costumes and people clutching copies of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books were lined four-deep along streets that the movie’s stars, such as Elijah Wood and Liv Tyler, were to walk along later today on their way to the premiere.

Some fans even slept on the streets overnight.

Fans from abroad have flocked to spots where the movies were filmed to gather the mood, even though all trace of the movie-making process was cleaned up months ago.

Dutch friends Charlotte Holst and Kristen Decks are spending three months touring the sites, sleeping at as many as possible.

“We slept at Rivendell (home of the trilogy’s elf people) Saturday night. After the premiere it’s Mordor (city of the evil Lord Sauron),” they told the city’s Dominion Post newspaper.

Director Jackson has already anointed the movie, Return of the King, as the best of the trilogy – as well as the longest at 3 hours 11 minutes.

The film opens in the US on December 17, most of Western Europe the next day and in Asia from December 20 onward.

Police said up to 100,000 people, a quarter of this city’s population, were expected to celebrate the last big event in more than five years of local production for the three movies.

The marathon production and the fact that Jackson is based here earned Wellington its Wellywood nickname.

New Zealanders also have taken the Rings films to their hearts because virtually all of the trilogy was shot in New Zealand, using the country’s mountains, rivers and forests as backdrops.

Jackson, who generally shuns the limelight, said today that “being the centre of so much attention is just a little scary and stressful”.

He said he is now looking forward to working on smaller local films – although he first has to complete another monster project – his version of King Kong.

He told hundreds of journalists gathered in Wellington that after King Kong, he is looking forward “to becoming a New Zealand film-maker again”, making New Zealand stories rather than “international” films.

Ian McKellen, who plays the wizard Gandalf in the trilogy, paid tribute to US-based New Line Cinema for putting trust in Jackson’s vision for the films.

“It is not often that you can congratulate a studio for courage, good judgment and for backing its film-maker,” he said.