Ian McKellen Turned Down $1.5 Million To Officiate Wedding As Gandalf

How much does it cost to get Gandalf the Grey to officiate your wedding? More than a dragon's hoard, it appears. Ian McKellen was offered $1.5 million to reprise his role as the wizard from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies, but the actor turned down the offer.

"I was offered $1.5 million to marry a very famous couple in California, which I would perhaps have considered doing but I had to go dressed as Gandalf," McKellen told The Daily Mail. "So I said, 'I am sorry. Gandalf doesn't do weddings.'"

According to the Daily Mail's report, the couple in question was Napster founder and former president of Facebook Sean Parker and singer Alexandra Lenas. That makes sense, as the couple spent a reported $10 million on a J.R.R. Tolkien-themed wedding in 2013.

McKellen isn't entirely opposed to officiating weddings, at least not for the right people. He officiated the wedding of his friend and X-Men co-star Patrick Stewart to Sunny Ozell in 2013.

McKellen first played Gandalf the Grey, and later Gandalf the White, in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), released from 2001-2003. A decade later, McKellen returned to join Jackson in adapting Tolkien's first Middle-earth adventure, The Hobbit, into a new trilogy of fantasy films (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, The Hobbit The Battle of the Five Armies) released from 2012-2014.

Speaking of high dollar Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit purchases, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment recently announced the Middle-earth 6-Film Collection. The $800, 30-disc box set collects the extended cuts of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, along with all previously released bonus materials, into a single set. The collection places each film and its materials into faux leather-bound books and places them on a hobbit-style bookshelf. The set also contains a replica of the Book of Westmarch. For a closer look, check out this unboxing by Dominic Monaghan, the actor who played the hobbit Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.