Wellington’s Evening Post had more to say on the premiere (more)
Day: November 19, 2000
The Wellington Reporter sent this in off today’s Evening Post:
“Wellington will be the first place in NZ to see hobbits and orcs on the big screen – but whether it will be the first in the world still has to be decided.
The Embassy Theatre Trust has confirmed that the first of Peter Jackson’s three films in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ series will have its NZ premiere at the Embassy in December next year.
Trust chairman Bill Sheat said it had known for some time Mr Jackson, a trust member, wanted to premiere the first film at the Embassy.
“We (the Trust) are absolutely delighted about that. We are in the process of refurbishing the [Embassy’s} interior, after completing the exterior last year. Our target is to have at least the main auditorium refurbished in time for the premiere of ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ he said.
The Embassy’s screen is 18m wide by 9m high, one of the largest in Australia and New Zealand. The theatre seats 880.
It has premiered at least two of Mr Jackson’s other films – ‘Brain Dead’ and ‘The Frighteners.’
Mr Sheat said he didn’t know if it would also be the world premiere of ‘The Fellowship of the Ring,’ the first ‘Lord of the Rings’ film. The day in December 2001 still had to be decided, he said.”
It was nice to think the first film was going to hit everyone’s screen on the same day, but it looks like that’s proved impossible. (more)
Hey, but at least it’s still worldwide.
I guess when New Line announced the simultaneous release of the ‘Fellowship’ on December 14 2001 next year, we were overjoyed to imagine we’d share a celebratory Tolkien experience that spanned the globe, a bit like the Millenium did. But we’ve heard rumours that it won’t be quite like that. The most recent ‘Herald’ article talks about the ‘probable first release on Boxing Day’ in NZ – that’s Dec. 26th, a day which traditionally looks like aliens have kidnapped the entire population of the country. Still, REAL Tolkien fans will stick around for the first screening – but will they spend Christmas day camped out in line in front of the cinemas?
New Zealand’s not the only place that’ll have to wait (and hey, if the release HAD been on the 14th worldwide, nyah nyah, we would have been ahead of everyone else!) We got this thanks to Jonas:
“I just talked with SF(Swedish Film distrubition) in Sweden where I live, they said that they were showing the films in Sweden and the date of the first film was, world wide, 19/Dec 2001.”
New Line’s original idea of having a simultaneous worldwidre release may have proved impractical for all sorts of reasons. It’s just the cynic in me that thinks they SAID “Worldwide” and MEANT “Worldwide except for funny foreign places with names we can’t remember.”
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