For the past few days a great UK-convention called Collectormania took place just outside of London. It was attended by no less then five actors from The Lord of the Rings: John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Billy Boyd, Sala Baker and last but not least Bruce Hopkins. Some of the first reactions from people that attended have just come in, take a read!
Ringer Spy Irascian chimed in with a short snippet about the event:
Only one more day (after today) for UK fans to get a chance to meet Billy Boyd, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Bruce Hopkins and Sala Baker. Monday is the last day. The event is free but autographs on nice shiny new high quality New Line photo’s cost £15 each (£10 for Bruce – bargain!) The only dilemma is which photo to pick. They also have some amazing A3-sized glossy photo’s of Gollum, Billy and Sauron available for a small additional charge.
Last night’s special screening of “The Two Towers” was sold out, with all five cast members scheduled for a fan Q&A session for 30 minutes. At saturday’s screening the cast stayed well past the 30 minutes and seemed happy to stay until every last question was answered. No major new news although it was interesting to hear John Rhys-Davies say that his re-shoot schedule had been delayed as the reshoots are now going on much longer – into July. It was also encouraging to hear Andy Serkis say that PJ is genuinely being sincere when he says that he thinks the third film is going to be easily the best of the three!
As always a better report with probably lots of awesome pictures will be up at Irascian’s own website pretty soon, keep an eye out on the frontpage for a link to that.
Next up is Cathyvicki who was there as well and listed some of her most memorable moments:
Just a quick report about Collectormania 3 at Milton Keynes this weekend. I went to both LOTR movie screenings and main events that happened during actors talk (Billy Boyd, John Rhys Davies, Andy Serkis, Sala Baker and Bruce Hopking) were as follows:
1) JRD tipping Sean Astin for an Oscar nomination for an ‘astounding’ performance in ROTK.
2) Andy Serkis’ re-enactment of the Gollum/Smeagol argumant in TTT. Absolutely bloody brilliant. What an amazing actor!
3) Sala Baker….that is all.
4) JRD sitting in the audience with us mortals and having a good old natter before anyone else came in. (the others needed an introduction…he didnt!)
Im still in a euphric haze about the whole weekend at the moment but if I remember anything else I will let you know!
And lastly there’s Kristina who didn’t so much send in a report but just a link to a bunch of pictures of herself next to the celebrities at Collectormania. Billy Boyd-fans rejoice; most of the pictures feature him. [More]
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On NZoom.com you can currently see two Realplayer video clips which show the interior of the contentious Embassy Theatre. “Capital Goaded over Premiere” is a short overview; the Holmes show’s “Wellington in Danger of Losing Premiere” shows the mayors of Auckland and Wellington having a right stoush over it. For some reason you have to click on the Team NZ story to get the Premiere story. [More] The Wellington Mayor insists the theatre WILL be up to standard by December.
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TV One News rehashed what we know of the story so far (except now the Wellington City Council isn’t making a decision on whether to upgrade the Embassy Theatre until Wednesday). They reprise Auckland Mayor John Banks’ offer to host ROTK in Auckland. The horror! Yes, we have a refurbished cinema here, the Civic, and it’s a beauty. However the thought of Auckland’s clueless city council trying to throw a world-class street party next to it in that monument to abysmal urban planning, Aotea Square, just makes me ill. [More]
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Ringer Spy Trueogre sends in this report from the Collectormania 2003 event from Milton Keynes in the UK. I absolutely love the picture of John Rhys Davies with the birthday balloon. Trueogre also got to meet Sala Baker, Billy Boyd, Bruce Hopkins and Andy Serkis. [More]
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Ringer Spy Trueogre sends in this report and accompanying pictures from the Collectormania 2003 event from Milton Keynes in the UK. I absolutely love the picture of John Rhys Davies with the birthday balloon.
Trueogre writes:
After missing my train to Milton Keynes, I managed to get on the next train.
My hopes was to arrive at 8:00am to get there early and get in line, but with the missed train there was no hope of that, as I had to now arrive at 9:00am.
One thing about Milton Keynes, is that it is badly signposted – there are no maps telling you where MK Shopping Centre is. I had to follow a bunch of other people whom I thought looked like they were going to a fair.
I arrived to the Shopping Centre and still no directions to the event. I had to blindly stumble around hoping I was going in the right direction. But luck have it, I was.
The first thing I came to was a signing booth for Warwick Davis, Virginia Hey, Lou Ferrigno, David Prowse, Kenny Baker, Daniel Logan and Chris Sabat. No Lord of the Rings yet.
So advancing into the swell of people who had turned up, I saw the next lot of signing booths, this time it was Paul McGann, Tom Felton, Devon Murry, Alan Ruck, Armin Shimerman, Corey Nemec, John Rhys Davis, Bruce Hopkins, and Sala Baker.
Over to the sides were Andy Serkis, and Billy Boyd. And Robert Englund with Samantha Bond.
First things first was go get my virtual ticket, John Rhys Davis, was already signing items, so I immediately got tickets to him as well as Armin. Since Andy and Billy weren’t there yet, a queue had built up none the less. My ticket for Billy was an orange 148 and my ticket for Andy was a blue 109.
I also had to get a queuing ticket for Robert Englund, his queue was more slower than John’s!
With my tickets in hand, I was free to wander around until it was my time to get into line. The time now was about 10am. Sala had no ticket for queing, so I immediately got into line to get his signature and picture. He was very nice and shook my hand, but me being me headed my hands straight for the pictures where upon they quickly zoomed to his hand. We swapped greetings and then I popped the question. ‘Do you fight Aragorn at the end of the third movie?’ he answered ‘I can’t say anything.’ so I said ‘Ah but you’re not denying it are you.’ he signed my photo and then replied ‘I don’t know what Peter Jackson has planned.’ I left only to realise I hadn’t paid the fellow for his two signatures, I felt like an idiot as people thought I was pushing in, but I wanted to pay the fellow his money which I eventually did.
I then went to queue in Bruce Hopkin’s queue as he didn’t have a ticket system either. He was very pleasant and lovely to meet. I asked him if he was going to be in the next movie, but his reply was that when filming Two Towers, Peter Jackson liked his role that he expanded it. But it was too late to insert him into the Pelennor Fields as they had already been filmed. So he appears more in Two Towers than he does in Return of the King. He said he was going back for reshoots soon.
Finally I got to queue for John, but disaster, I dropped my camera and busted it into a zillion bits. Had to buy another one sharpish, but I missed out my opportunity to have my photo with him. I had to get one from afar. But I wished him a happy birthday.
I asked the lady who looked after John’s queue what number they were on, she said 30. It was around 12:00pm, and he’d only signed a few, boy when John speaks, he speaks. So I went for some lunch while I waited for my numbers to come up.
When I got back around 1:30pm, I found that Billy and Andy had gone for lunch and they wouldn’t be back till 2pm. They were on tickets 160, so I was well in the zone as well as for Andy, so I waited for them to return. They didn’t come back till 2:30pm and the people that were in the queue when they went on their lunch break were let in first, then I got to get in the queue because of my ticket.
The queue went quite quickly, and by the time I got to Billy, I was in a fluster because I hadn’t got my stuff ready and I was rummaging in my bag for my ticket and photo’s to sign, so I hadn’t got a question prepared.
I quickly joined the queue for Andy and when I got there, I spoke to him about his role in Othello, but he said he hurt his back, and couldn’t do the last three weeks of the show.
All in all the ticket system wasn’t bad, but it was hard to hear the numbers come up, as the speaker was poor so you got muffled information. The only way to find out was to keep asking the helpers, what number, what number? They had a board up telling you what numbers they were on, but it wasn’t updated as quickly as it should have been.
But I did enjoy myself, and I’m very greatful that Milton Keynes held such an event, and that all the actors were gracious and kind enough to appear at the event. It’s something I won’t forget in a hurry.
– Trueogre
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Each week, I scour Ebay looking for the hot Tolkien items up for sale. I post the most interesting here for you to bid on! [More]
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