WESTWOOD, MA — August 29, 2007 — Turbine, Inc. has launched the official 7-day free trial of The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™ (LOTRO). Beginning today, fans in North America, Australia and New Zealand can play the best online game for free by visiting trial.lotro.com. [More] [trial.lotro.com]

Vanessa “Saffron” Price, Online Community Representative for The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, writes: Meet the bandits and brigands of Eriador! We all know their lawless and anti-social ways, read more about them in this week’s update! [More]

Director Peter Jackson has announced that two young local girls will star in his up-coming feature film The Lovely Bones. The movie is due to start shooting later this year, when the two Kiwi unknowns will be rubbing shoulders with an impressive list of Hollywood’s elite already cast for Jackson’s next big movie. The Lovely Bones is the story of a young girl who is murdered, then watches her family grieve from heaven. [More]

Multiple Oscar-winner Weta Workshop will be key to Tourism New Zealand’s new campaign to promote the country to overseas tourists. Animated images of Maui hauling the North Island from the sea have been devised by Richard Taylor’s creative artists to re-launch the 100% New Zealand campaign. [More]

Stage and screen star Ian McKellen will speak at the Guthrie Theater on Oct. 8 as part of the theater’s Global Voices program. McKellen, who will appear at the Guthrie with he Royal Shakespeare Company’s productions of “King Lear” and “The Seagull” in October, has appeared in the Broadway productions of “Amadeus” and “Dance of Death” as well as the films “God and Monsters, “Lord of the Rings” and “X-Men.” He also has won Tony, Olivier, Screen Actors Guild. [More]