Saoirse Ronan has refused a role in the new saga on Middle Earth prepared by Peter Jackson, with whom she had filmed in “Lovely Bones”. An eminently respectable choice, which didn’t really bring him luck at the box office…
No Middle Earth for Saoirse Ronan. In 2010, the actress headlined the film Lovely Bones, directed by Peter Jackson. The story of a murdered young girl who, from beyond, observes her family in shock at her disappearance and monitors her murderer, as well as the progress of the investigation.
In 2011, the filmmaker plunged back into Tolkien’s universe with the first part of a trilogy, this time devoted to The Hobbit. And offered the actress a role. His participation in this new adventure was almost certain: the casting was officially announced at the end of January 2011, and filming was to begin in New Zealand almost 2 months later.
But she nevertheless declined the role, as she explained to Irish Examiner in May 2013 : “There was talk of me playing the forest elf Itaril, but I had to turn it down. I was really disappointed, but there were other projects I had to consider and spending a year on The Hobbit didn’t bother me. ‘wouldn’t have left time for anything else.’
The character Itaril does not appear in either the film trilogy or Tolkien’s work. She was probably invented for Ronan and was removed after he refused to play the role, and was replaced by the elf Tauriel, played by Evangeline Lilly.
A respectable choice but which ultimately proved unfortunate, in the wake of this decision: his fantastic film Byzantium, directed by Neil Jordan, was a dismal failure at the international box office, only collecting a little over $828,000 in revenue. .
Violet & Daisy, released in 2011, performed even more humiliatingly with barely $108,000 in revenue.