As you might expect of anything connected to The Lord of the Rings, the numbers behind Howard Shore’s score for the Peter Jackson film trilogy are mighty impressive:

• Four months of solid research.
• Nearly four years to compose.
• A total of 11 hours of music.
• More than 50 leitmotifs (individual themes).

“It was pretty daunting at first,” Shore admitted of the task. “Writing film scores is always difficult to do – but the funny thing was, I didn’t want to stop when it was over.”

Shore has since moved on to other projects: He’s preparing a staged version of The Fly for L.A. Opera with film director David Cronenberg and author David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly). [More]

Two New Zealand films have been ranked among the top 10 wordwide in terms of 2005 box office revenue. In its annual report on world film market trends released this week Cannes European Cinema ranked The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe seventh and King Kong eighth. Narnia made US$428 ($695) million and King Kong US$388 ($630) million, despite being released only in December. [More]

I know it’s a little late for ‘DVD Tuesday’ but wakerobin let me know what Dominic Monaghan’s drama ‘Shooting Livien’ is now available on DVD. [More]

Dominic Monaghan is slated to be a guest on ‘The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson’ tonight on CBS. He is there to promote his hit TV show ‘Lost’, which airs a 2-hour season finale next Wednesday. Watch this space for a clip from the show!

James writes: In video blog 8 of the new movie Hot Fuzz, written and directed and starring the same kick arse team from Shaun Of The Dead, director Edgar Wright feels tired and runs down, so who does he call for help?! Peter Jackson! Ala the Kong and Superman production diaries! Though the phone prove useless as Pete walks into frame! Behold! [More]