Elijah Wood, Cate Blanchett and Orlando Bloom are among the Lord of the Rings stars who have claimed they were underpaid on the billion-dollar franchise.
Director Peter Jackson spared no expense on special effects for his adaptation of the hugely influential works of fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien — the trilogy reportedly had a combined budget of $281 million. As a result, audiences made LOTR one of the most successful franchises of all time with nearly $3 billion in earnings at the box office.
Jackson’s trilogy proved so popular that he eventually spent a jaw-dropping $700 million for the budget of three Hobbit prequel films. With so much cash flying around Middle-earth, it’s a surprise that the star-studded cast didn’t necessarily reap the benefits.
Keep scrolling for a look back at what some of Lord of the Rings’ key cast members said about allegedly being underpaid for the trilogy:
Elijah Wood
Elijah Wood New Line Productions, Inc.
Wood should have been a prime candidate for getting a huge paycheck on LOTR, since his character, Frodo Baggins, is crucial to the trilogy’s plot throughout all three movies. However, the actor told Business Insider in March 2025 the cast’s contracts weren’t “lucrative” partially because they signed on for a trilogy at the outset.
“Because we weren’t making one movie and then renegotiating a contract for the next, it wasn’t the sort of lucrative scenario that you could sort of rest easy for the rest of your life,” Wood recalled.
There was little time to even broach the subject of renegotiating contracts because Jackson and the LOTR cast shot all three films back-to-back between October 1999 and December 2000.
Wood declined to state how much he earned on LOTR, insisting instead that it was just an “honor to have been a part of those films.”
“The benefit of [the pay] was that we were also signing up for something that was going to be a part of our lives forever,” he added.
Cate Blanchett
Cate Blanchett New Line Productions, Inc.
The two-time Academy Award winner, who played elf leader Galadriel, told Watch What Happens Live host Andy Cohen in 2024 that “no one got paid anything to do” Lord of the Rings.
Cohen seemed surprised by Blanchett’s statement, as he assumed she’d at least received a “piece of the back end” of the record profits made by the three Lord of the Rings films.
“No, that was way before any of that … no, nothing,” she insisted.
Blanchett admitted she was willing to take less money than she deserved because LOTR gave her an opportunity to work with a director she admired, in Jackson.
“I wanted to work with the guy who made [1992 horror movie] Braindead,” Blanchett joked. “I mean, I basically got free sandwiches, and I got to keep my ears … No, no one got paid anything.”
Despite her salary woes on LOTR, Blanchett reprised her role as Galadriel for Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy and recently offered to return for costar Andy Serkis’ upcoming spinoff movie.
“I would do anything with Andy Serkis, anything, I love him to death,” Blanchett said at the 2024 Glastonbury Festival. “That bunch of people have been like a life raft for me, and I adore Andy, so yes. I finagled my way into The Hobbit … so I will go and hunt [Serkis] down.”
Orlando Bloom
Orlando Bloom New Line Productions, Inc.
Bloom was one of the bigger names in the LOTR cast when The Fellowship of the Ring hit theaters in December 2001, but a quirk of scheduling potentially prevented him from reaping the financial benefits.
The British actor had another huge hit in 2001 with Black Hawk Down but the war drama was actually filmed after Bloom had completed his work on Lord of the Rings due to the latter’s year-long shooting schedule.
As such, Bloom revealed on The Howard Stern Show in 2019 that he “got nothing” for playing Legolas — or, more accurately, he got $175,000.
Still, he admitted to Stern: “[It was] the greatest gift of my life … I’d do it for half the money.”
Sean Astin
Sean Astin New Line Productions, Inc.
Astin, who played the hobbit Samwise Gamgee, confirmed on The Jim and Sam Show in 2008 he was offered $250,000 total for filming the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy (or, $75,000 per movie). He said he received “no residuals” but did get a cut of the merchandise for his character.
“During the contract phase, I just couldn’t believe it was going to be so little. I’ve made tons more money than this on an individual film, and this is, like, a galactic movie,” he remembered. “It’s about negotiating, when you want them more than they want you.”
While Astin felt that he lost money upfront, he hinted that producers New Line made him “feel a little bit better” by the time they were promoting the third and final film, The Return of the King.
“We’re not supposed to talk about that,” he teased. “By then, I’d done a lot of other work and we were fine.”
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