IGN reports that Boyd and Monaghan revealed a time when “Peter Jackson was being pressured from above to have one of the four Hobbits die in the film, even though they survived in the books. Luckily, Jackson didn’t succumb to the demands of the producers.” And if he did, Monaghan said it most likely would have been Merry on the chopping block.
“It’s a good job that didn’t happen, because it would have been me,” Monaghan said. “It definitely would have. There’s no way they are killing Frodo and Sam, and the only ones that would be left would be Merry and Pippin. They wouldn’t kill Pippin because Pippin has a really strong story with Gandalf. It would have definitely been me. I think Pete quite rightly was like, ‘This is a luminary piece of written work, and we need to stick close to the text.’ So, he stuck by his guns. Yeah, I’m thankful that didn’t happen.”
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“Here’s the thing. There was almost nudity in the movies,” Boyd said at the time. “[Screenwriter and producer] Philippa Boyens…she wrote a scene, because we’d been doing some kind of gags and winding people up…[and] she said, ‘Oh, it’s a new scene we’re filming next week, with the Ents. When Merry and Pippin are up Treebeard, he gets afraid and shakes his branches, which makes you guys fall, and as you hit all the branches on the way down, by the time you hit the ground, you’re naked. And Merry turns to Pippin and says, ‘It’s cold, isn’t it?’ And Pippin says, ‘Hold me, Merry.’
The nude scene didn’t make the cut, nor did Jackson kill off any of the four hobbits. Boyd and Monaghan’s podcast “The Friendship Onion” is now available to stream.
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