Peter Jackson has revealed that The Beatles approached J.R.R. Tolkien forty years ago with a request to produce a movie version of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien turned them down:
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,623838,00.html via blastr | Photo: Movie Chop Shop
[...]John Lennon wanted to play the role of the avaricious creature Gollum and Paul McCartney was to play Frodo Baggins in a proposed '60s Beatles movie version of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy that never reached fruition. In fact, says Jackson, it was the author himself who nixed the plan. "It was something John was driving and J.R.R. Tolkien still had the film rights at that stage, but he didn't like the idea of the Beatles doing it. So he killed it," Jackson told the newspaper. George Harrison would have played the role that eventually went to Sir Ian McKellen, that of the wise wizard Gandalf, and Ringo Starr would have been Frodo's devoted sidekick, Sam.
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,623838,00.html via blastr | Photo: Movie Chop Shop
"Hey! You've got to hide the ring away."
"The long and winding road, that leads to Mordor."
"Across the Middle Earth."
I could go on...
But I would have liked to see John as Gollum and George as Gandalf, in parody style. I wonder who the other characters would have been played by? I imagine Keith Moon may have made a good Gimli, possibly Bob Dylan as Aragorn, a worn and wise hero?