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Rather than simply swallow and regurgitate the defense of popularity, I think we ought to ask about the role and nature of the audience in the artist's conception and composition of the work.
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I think Bethberry makes a very good point - Tolkien did not necessarily
have an audience in mind when he wrote. Yes, he was asked (commissioned?) to produce a follow-up to
The Hobbit, but he clearly was not
required to produce a specific type of work beyond it being a novel in format. I often wonder just whether this could happen today. Truly innovative fiction is seemingly all too often limited to first novels and I have the feeling this may have a lot to do with marketing; publishers may demand that a successful work be followed up by 'more of the same'. This is very much akin to the phrase in music "that difficult third album" - the writer is somehow 'stuck' between the need to be creative and the need to make money for the 'investor'. Where this side of marketing doesn't hold sway, then another type often restricts the writer, and that's the requirement to 'fit in' with a particular genre which is selling well, hence the racks of generic fantasy, chick lit, crime etc.
Anyway, Tolkien seemingly did not have to operate under these constraints and yet his work has achieved phenomenal popularity. I still think PJ could have achieved the same with the films, that he did not have to make the changes made to garner 'popular appeal' as his films would have had this
anyway.