Ringer ShelaghC has some further information that may refute AICN’s rumour that New Line is pondering “farming out” the RoTK EE FX to a digital FX house other than WETA.

AICN wrote: “Word is that New Line are baulking at the price for another Extended Edition, and may be farming out the FX to El Cheapo American FX House Inc rather than the high-quality excesses of WETA … our scooper (Toss the Dwarf) pointed out that this is strictly rumour-mill stuff, but remember who told you first.”

ShelaghC writes: “I attended the December 3rd LA premiere of RotK. On the stage before the movie began, Peter Jackson stated that the folks at Weta were hard at work on the extended edition of the movie. So, unless something has intensely changed in the last 2.5 weeks, I’d say this rumor is probably false.”

Reassuring, but there’s nothing like ironclad confirmation.