tom-cruise-2With MGM involved in financing “The Hobbit,” and Tom Cruise heading its United Artists division, its been a TORn staff hobby to joke about Tom Cruise playing Bilbo. Far fetched? Perhaps, but, he just flew to Wellington to meet with Peter Jackson. No joke.

The pair could be talking about anything. Jackson could be giving Cruise advice on New Zealand real estate, they could be talking about “Dam Busters,” or the speculated-on “District 10,” that would serve as a sequel for the Jackson-produced hit “District 9.” Maybe he wants the juicy role of The Necromancer. Nobody really knows the reason behind the meeting but we do know everybody will be talking about it. You can read the article right here or you can read on for some more story. Continue reading “And Bilbo is . . . Tom Cruise?”

Roger D. Noriega writes: bruce-hopkins.com In Association with MBL Entertainment LLC & NDB Media (NDB Radio), present: Bruce Hopkins, Gamling in the Lord of the Rings, Jubilee, This is not a Love Story, Warm Gun, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: The Warrior Princess, Young Hercules, The Westside Story, Peter Pan, Romeo & Juliet and much more – joins the hosts of the Sunday Night Conversation on Blogtalkradio’s: the Star Trek channel! On August 28, 2009 @ 7:00 P.M. PDT. Show call-in #: 347-215-6508

From Scoop Books: Philippa Boyens, MNZM, co-wrote the screenplay for the Lord of the Rings trilogy with Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, for which the trio won an Oscar in 2004. She also worked on the screenplay for King Kong and the adaptation of Alice Sebold’s novel The Lovely Bones, and is collaborating on The Hobbit. She talks to Ken Duncum about her scriptwriter’s dream run. Where: The Marae, Level 4, Te Papa, Cable Street, Wellington (please note that no food may be taken onto The Marae). The Writers on Mondays series is presented by the International Institute of Modern Letters and The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Each session is open to the public and free of charge.

Bilbo - The Hobbit 3dLast week, with the release of James Cameron’s AVATAR trailer, we asked you, whether the Hobbit films ‘should’ be in 3D. As of this morning, with nearly 3400 of you chiming in with your votes, the resounding result is ‘No’. 74% of you either flat out don’t want a 3D hobbit or strongly dislike the idea. Only 13% of you think it should be in 3D. Obviously we aren’t scientifically polling our audience here, but the trend is quite interesting. As we are told by James Cameron and others that the ‘next generation’ of 3D will blow us away, seems like most of us are not too excited when it comes to our favorite topic. We’ll revisit the poll after AVATAR is released in December and more of you have had a chance to see the ‘new’ 3D. You can still vote in the poll on the right side of this page if you haven’t voiced your opinion. We’ll be swapping in a new poll shortly.