Rings films caused Tolkien clan ‘pain’

The grandson of J R R Tolkien has revealed how Sir Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movies tore his family apart and provoked a feud with his father.

Simon Tolkien, 53, told The Daily Telegraph that the immense popularity of the film adaptations was akin to being ‘‘hit by a juggernaut’’.

The former barrister, now himself a successful novelist, said he began to lose sight of his identity and became ‘‘suffocated’’ by being known as ‘‘J R R Tolkien’s grandson’’.

The problems also sparked an ‘‘incredibly, dreadfully painful’’ feud with his father, Christopher, with the falling out becoming so bad that the pair did not speak for ‘‘a while’’. The pair had since ‘‘sorted out all our differences’’.

Christopher Tolkien, now 87, did not attend the premiere of the first The Lord of the Rings movie, saying the Tolkien estate was better off avoiding any specific association with the trilogy.

Earlier this year, he told French newspaper Le Monde: ‘‘They gutted the book, making an action film for 15 to 25-year-olds.’’ However, the arrival of another Tolkien blockbuster no longer filled him with trepidation.