John Noble We must also wish a happy belated birthday to John Noble! John Noble (born August 20, 1948) is an Australian film, television actor, and theatre director of more than 80 plays. He was born in Port Pirie, South Australia, Australia. He makes occasional appearances on the television series All Saints. He is internationally best known for his performance as Denethor in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King film. His latest films are White Noise: The Light and One Night with the King. He has recently been cast as scientist Walter Bishop in the J. J. Abrams television series Fringe. He stands 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) in height.

You can watch the series premiere on Tuesday, September 9th at 8pm ET on CTV and ‘A.’

alanlee1.jpg Happy belated birthday to Alan Lee! Alan Lee (born August 20, 1947) is an English book illustrator and movie conceptual designer. He has illustrated several fantasy books, notably several works of J.R.R. Tolkien, such as the centenary edition of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Children of Húrin. Other books he has illustrated include Faeries (with Brian Froud), Lavondyss by Robert Holdstock (as well as the cover of an early print of this book), The Mabinogion, Castles and Tolkien’s Ring (both by David Day), ‘The Mirrorstone by Michael Palin, The Moon’s Revenge by Joan Aiken and Merlin Dreams by Peter Dickinson. He has also illustrated Rosemary Sutcliff’s adaptations of Iliad and Odyssey (Black Ships Before Troy and The Wanderings of Odysseus.) He has also done a cover painting for Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan. He won the Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration in 1993 for Black Ships Before Troy and the Best Artist Award at the World Fantasy Awards of 1998.

Guardian Logo Martin sends along this link to an audio interview with RDT, take a listen: Jason Solomons talks to upcoming British actor Thomas Turgoose about his role in the new Shane Meadows film Somers Town and Xan Brooks quizzes Guillermo Del Toro on Hellboy II and his new project The Hobbit. Film Weekly Chats up Guillermo Del Toro

WETA LOGO The Weta Cast – A Bug In The Workshop quickly became very popular across the world. Daniel and Magnus were blown away by all the helpful feedback and generous comments. In this episode, Magnus Hjert interviews Richard Taylor, Weta creative director and multi Academy Award winner about Wetas history with Halo 3 and about collecting. Daniel Falconer catches up with fellow designer Paul Tobin and talks about his work at Weta and about The Chronicles Of Narnia. Here is the RSS link (Needs compatible RSS reader, Firefox, Safari or IE7) or Click here if you prefer to use iTunes

9433_press02-001Sideshow Collectibles has just released their latest addition to the Lord of the Rings Legendary Scale Bust line-up: Aragorn! If the prototype pictures are any indication, this piece promises to be one of the more popular Aragorn collectibles on the market. The bust captures the moment in The Fellowship of the Ring when Aragorn discovers and inspects the Shards of Narsil. If you’ve been collecting this line, he’ll make a great neighbor for your Legolas and Gandalf Legendary Scale Busts. Surf on over to SideshowCollectibles.com for complete details. [Aragorn Legendary Scale Bust] [All LOTR Legendary Scale Busts]

Del ToroAmbrose Heron of FILMdetail.com recently spoke with Guillermo del Toro about Hellboy II and they also discussed some interesting tidbits about the writing of the ‘Hobbit’ script:

I seem to have a never ending mine of reading material. I started by reading everything I could get my hands on that Tolkien wrote of Middle-earth. And then I started reading as many books as I can about Tolkien writing about Middle-earth. I want to get as familiar with the cosmology and the genealogy and the geography of that place as possible. Because for many, myself included, it has to become a real place again.

Continue reading “FILMDetail Speaks with GDT on ‘Hobbit’ Progress”