Good new for Wellington Hobbit fans and GDT fans, from the Noldor Blog again: Del Toro will be signing copies of his new book The Strain at Unity Books. The man seems to be everywhere these days! Read More
One of the gentle souls in the movie business is Guillermo del Toro, and I always look forward to my interviews with him. This is a longer version of my latest story on Del Toro, which is scheduled to run Thursday on the cover of the Los Angeles Times Calender section. The Hobbit Fantasy and horror fans, prepare yourself for the Decade of Del Toro. On the far side of the globe, in New Zealand, filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is now in his seventh month of labor on “The Hobbit,” a $300-million epic that will be told over two films in 2011 and 2012. But you can also find the Guadalajara native on the shelf of your local bookstore with his just-released debut novel, “The Strain,” the opening installment of a vampire trilogy he already has mapped out. More..
Mauro writes: I was listening to a Basta de Todo interview with the great Spanish actor/comedian/writer Santiago Segura, who performed in many movies and is a personal friend of both Guillermo del Toro and Alex de la Iglesia, featured in a lot of movies of both filmmakers. He performed starring roles in Spanish released titles of both of them and he did several cameo roles on the Hollywood movies of Alex and Guillermo (Hellboy, Perdita Durango, Blade II, etc). He’s sort of a fetish actor for both, he mentioned he’s traveling next week to New Zealand to “visit” his friend Guillermo, (he jokingly said “I’m going down there to beg him for a role on The Hobbit”). The interviewers and Santiago even hinted that the chance of a role is pretty much secure. Santiago Segura imdb
Message board members Earl and Theodred alerted us to a recent video interview with Mike Mignola at collider.com. In addition to saying how much he’s looking forward to Comic-Con, Mike made some brief, but very interesting comments about the week and a half he recently spent in New Zeeland working on The Hobbit, and what we can expect:
“It’s hard to say at this point, because so much work had been done before I even got there that I looked at it and I said wow, it looks like a 16 hour, insane movie, there’s so much in it. It’s too early for me to tell how much stuff is going to get pared down. I don’t really feel comfortable saying too much, except that it looks amazing. And it’s very much a del Toro stamp on that world.”
Peter Jackson has revealed that the release of his film The Lovely Bones was delayed so it would have a better chance of being considered for the Oscars. The film was to have been released in March but Hollywood studio Paramount postponed release until December. “When we showed them the cut late last year, they decided to delay the release until December to plop it into the “awards season”, which is a nice vote of confidence in the movie,” Jackson said in magazine On Film. The delay meant he had more time to work on the final cut and spend more time on visual effects. He wished he had had the same luxury with his last film, King Kong. “I wish we had this time on King Kong, which we badly wanted to reduce by 20 minutes, but we ran out of time before figuring out how to do it,” he said. Lovely Bones release in Oscar season
Andrea and Robert from www.badtaste.it send this in: Hi, just wanted to tell you we met Howard Shore during a public speech yesterday in Rome, before a Lord of the Rings Symphony performance at Auditorium Parco della Musica.
He answered a few questions about The Hobbit: he’s composing music for the movies, and he said that as we all know, there’s a new director, but Guillermo Del Toro wants people feel these movies are part of the trilogy. So, especially when you’ll see the second Hobbit movie, you are going to feel a strong continuity with the Fellowship of the Ring - even musically. Obviously, there will be new compositions and a lot of different things, but they are going to establish a strong connection between the movies, thanks to characters like Bilbo and the Dwarves.
Justin writes: I’ve just came across a new Guillermo de Toro interview on PureNewZealand’s channel. “Acclaimed director Guillermo de Toro is in New Zealand to film 2 movie, based on ‘The Hobbit’. Hear about his plan for his movie, his thoughts on filming New Zealand, and his lifelong obsession with monsters.” Read the rest of this entry »
Tehanu sends this in: In an interview with NZ industry magazine Onfilm, Peter Jackson lashed out at the NZ Film Commission, accusing it of making directors and writers ’second-class citizens’ in the NZ film industry. Jackson has been appointed to undertake a review of the Commission. PJ criticises NZ Film Commission
June 25th, 2009 by Altaira
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From Weta News: We are delighted and immensely proud to announce that John Howe, on his first-ever foray into three-dimensional representations of his world renowned Tolkien portfolio, has chosen Weta as his partner. It has long been a dream of John’s to add that extra dimension and together with his friend and Weta Workshop’s Creative Director, Richard Taylor, this idea has been developed over a decade.
Guided by John’s and Richard’s watchful eyes, a series of incredible sculpture has been created by Daniel Cockersell, Brigitte Wuest, Eden Small and the team at Weta Workshop. Cast in very short editions in bronze and in white metal, these fine art pieces will be cherished by discerning collectors the world over. The first two pieces in the range will be on display and available for orders at the Weta booth (#2615) at Comic Con in San Diego, 22-26 July 2009. Beyond Comic Con, the range will be available to order from this website. Further details will be announced on this website shortly. Read more.
From the folks at WETA: A short but very exciting update today! John Howe and Weta announce The Art of John Howe - Sculptures from Middle-earth. Podcast Episode X is here - listen to John Howe talk about the sculptures and get the latest updates around Comic Con.