Character age in The Lord of the Rings as of 2014
One trilogy to rule them all
Already an established literary success, the 2001-2003 The Lord of the Rings movie adaptations by Peter Jackson were also extremely successful at the box office and even won several Oscars. The third part in particular, The Return of the King, was very popular. There have been other adaptations of the trilogy, for radio, stage, and television, but none were ever that successful.
There and back again
After the immense success of The Lord of the Rings, Jackson then decided to also adapt the prequel. The Hobbit, which Tolkien had written as a children’s book and which is much shorter than The Lord of the Rings, was adapted into a trilogy as well and turned out to be equally successful in cinemas.