Botes On His LOTR Documentary

New Line recently announced the Blu-ray Extended Edition release of the Lord of the Rings trilogy as part of the set will be Costa Botes Making of documentary on the films. While not part of the original extended edition DVD sets, the documentary was released, heavily edited, around 2006 which is why its addition to the Blu-ray set isn't considered "new" material. It turns out that even though Costa is a friend of Peter Jackson, he has no intention of creating a Making of The Hobbit documentaries in a large part because of the problems he had with New Line and their treatment of documentaries. The Noldor Blog has posted an interview with Coata Botes where he provides some details and a little explanation of his experiences. The result is very interesting read. A few snippets are below, the full interview is here.

JM - [It] looks like your LOTR documentaries have been re-released on the LOTR extended edition on Blu-Ray, finally, although apparently it's a “limited edition” release.
CB - Right, first I've heard of it [was when the announcement came through on March 7th].

JM - Wow, they don't even tell the director when they release them? I did wonder about that, yeah.
CB - New Line never consulted or even told me when they first released them- they originally got the aspect ratio wrong, missed a prime opportunity for commentaries, made some annoying edits ... the biggest thing is they should have made an effort to put them out as a standalone set, rather than squeezing the fans yet again to buy the original films. I did not like taking the blame for that when it was no choice of mine! Left a very bad taste (no pun intended). But in whatever form, I'd rather they were out than not, if for no other reason than my docs - I believe - properly acknowledge all the rank and file techs and artists who sweated blood to make the movies happen.