Kurosawa directs Lord of the Rings...

Completely disregarding what anybody else has already pointed out, I
can't see a Kurosawa Lord of the Rings in 1958.
The late seventies to mid-eighties, somewhere around Kagemusha and Ran
(and the Rankin-Bass Hobbit (in which apparently a precursor to Studio
Ghibli was involved) and the Bakshi Lord of The Rings), on the other
hand...

Possibly not a straight by-the-book Lord of The Rings, but an adaptation
like Ran and The Throne of Blood (and Yojimbo and more...)
And it might be an international production - Ran was technically French-
Japanese.

The butterflies leading up to this reconcile Kurosawa and Mifune, and the
latter plays either Gandalf or Theoden (or an equivalent part if going the Ran-route).
 
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