...do you remember what Jackson's backup plan was, in case Rings didn't pan out?Yep.
King Kong.
During a promotional interview last December shortly before his first installment of Rings was released, Jackson was quoted by Cinescape that his team was "developing King Kong and The Lord of the Rings at the same time, and we decided to make King Kong first. Unfortunately, Universal canned the movie after we worked on it for about six months."
Six months later, Rings has racked up a number of awards and nominations worldwide and has generated nearly a billion dollars in revenue in ticket sales and video pre-sales.
And Universal?
They're ready to make Kong now, with Peter Jackson at the helm.
If the report I got from Mr. Transistorsan is correct, Universal and Jackson's team are in primary negotiations to get the project up and running as soon as The Return of the King is released....
Q: Should be a simple one—which are the two towers implied by The Two Towers? I've seen just about ALL the possible towers, including Barad-dûr, Orthanc, Minas Tirith, and Minas Morgul (occasionally, I've even seen somebody try and suggest Helm's Deep!)
–Brian Gilkison
A: Look on the last page of The Fellowship of the Ring:
Here ends the first part of the history of the War of the Ring.The second part is called The Two Towers, since the events recounted in it are dominated by Orthanc, the citadel of Saruman, and the fortress of Minas Morgul that guards the secret entrance to Mordor…
I have seen arguments against this text, saying that the Professor did not write them and they were actually inserted by the publisher, Allen & Unwin. Indeed, remember that The Lord of the Rings was not originally meant to be a trilogy of three volumes but rather a compilation of Six Books. It was Tolkien’s publisher who decided on a "more convenient" number of three separate volumes and then requested new names for them. Tolkien was unhappy with this but under a deadline pressure came up with the names as we have them now.
By looking in the Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien you can learn much more about his personal thoughts on this:
"The Two Towers gets as near as possible to finding a title to cover the widely divergent Books 3 & 4; and can be left ambiguous—it might refer to Isengard and Barad-dûr, or to Minas Tirith and B; or Isengard and Cirith Ungol (1)." [Letter #140]
The footnote (1) to this letter reads:
"In a subsequent letter to Ranyer Unwin (#143), Tolkien is more definite that the Two Towers are ‘Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol’. On the other hand, in his original design for the jacket of The Two Towers (see #151) the Towers are certainly Orthanc and Minas Morgul. Orthanc is shown as a black tower, three-horned (as seen in Pictures no. 27), and with the sign of the White Hand beside it; Minas Morgul is a white tower, with a thin waning moon above it, in reference to its original name, Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Rising Moon (FotR p. 257). Between the two towers a Nazgûl flies."
There is another letter I found, stating:
"I am not at all happy about the title The Two Towers. It must, if there is any real reference in it to Vol. II, refer to Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol. But since there is so much made of the basic opposition of the Dark Tower and Minas Tirith, that seems very misleading." [Letter #143]
So there you have it. My personal belief, if you will indulge me, is that the title makes a connection between the two structures that have the greatest impact on the main characters. Or rather, the powers within those structures. In Book Three we have Théoden and Gandalf vying against the power of Orthanc. In Book Four, Frodo and Sam find that their path ultimately leads to the Haunted Pass and Minas Morgul, where Frodo comes within a hair's breadth of being captured by the Witch-king (remember, we don’t really see events inside the Tower of Cirith Ungol until The Return of the King, so that doesn’t count here).
–Quickbeam (at TORN)