It took one ring to rule them all, and 11 Oscars to make movie history. Ten years ago this month, The Return of the King, the third and final chapter in The Lord of the Rings franchise, did the unthinkable: it swept the Academy Awards, winning all 11 categories it was nominated for, including best picture.

On paper, the film––and the franchise as a whole––was the polar opposite of Oscar bait. These were fantasy films filled with dwarves and hobbits and elves and magic rings. They were directed by a filmmaker known for low-budget horror flicks; cast with a group of unknown actors few audiences could pick out of a lineup; and written, planned, shot, and edited all in New Zealand, far away from the cozy awards-friendly confines of sunny Los Angeles.

What Oscar cognoscenti didn’t see from the outset, they would come to realize by 2001, when The Fellowship of the Ring was released to overwhelming critical acclaim. The first chapter would go on to nab 13 nominations––a series high––but only come away with technical awards. A year later, The Two Towers grabbed six nods, but it too lost out on best picture. That set the stage for the final movie, as New Line focused its attention on getting Peter Jackson and the J. R. R. Tolkien-based series the Academy recognition it deserved.

In honor of the 10th anniversary of the The Return of the King’s awards sweep, VF Hollywood pieced together the film’s entire Oscar campaign. Speaking with more than a dozen people involved with the effort––from New Line executives to designers to consultants––we were able to paint a complete picture of how a fantasy film was able to win 11 Academy Awards––including the granddaddy of them all, best picture––and change the trajectory of the Oscars.

In 1999, New Line green-lit three consecutive Lord of the Rings films to shoot over a span of 18 months, an incredibly risky proposition for a studio known more for its indie fare. However, then co-C.E.O.s Michael Lynne and Bob Shaye, along with other New Line executives, were confident in the product––and in the awards that could follow.

Russell Schwartz (president of theatrical marketing, New Line, in 2004): The question about the Academy campaign was, was it worth doing? Now when you have a trilogy, it’s very hard not to at least give the first one its due. But again, we wanted to make sure we had the confidence level from early screenings. When you start feeling comfortable about that, then thoughts of the Academy start creeping into your mind.

Christina Kounelias (executive vice president, marketing, New Line, in 2004): [It] was basically two years of “They’re not going to get it, they’re not going to get it, they have to get it on Return of the King.” So our job, and I think we did it well, was to create this sense of inevitability around the movie.

Russell Schwartz: The biggest problem––and this started with Fellowship––was we had the dreaded F word; we were the fantasy movie, and there was no fantasy movies that ever won for best picture.

In order to secure a best-picture win on the third movie, Schwartz brought in a small army of veteran publicists and awards consultants to assist New Line. Along with Gail Brounstein, who had worked on the previous two Lord of the Rings Oscar runs, Schwartz hired David Horowitz, Johnny Friedkin, Melody Korenbrot, and Ronni Chasen, along with Allan Mayer––who was primarily known for handling celebrity P.R. crises. The strategy was clear: leave nothing to chance.