If instead of having 10 Best Picture nominees for 2009, the folks running the Oscars had decided to do a Ten Best list for the decade about to end, I doubt that many ’09 movies would be on it. And last year didn’t offer many legitimate contenders, either. It’s not just the economy that’s been in a recession lately. Continue reading “LOTR Tops Moviefone’s Movies of the Decade”

dommonaghan.jpgDominic Bernard Patrick Luke Monaghan (born 8 December 1976) is an English actor. He has received international attention from playing Merry in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and for his role as Charlie Pace on the television show Lost. He is currently portraying the character Dr. Simon Campos on FlashForward.

Ian McKellen As GandalfIn an interview today with MTV, Peter Jackson revealed that three Lord of the Rings actors will be returning to reprise their roles in The Hobbit:

“Gandalf, being a 2,000-year-old wizard, is still around and plays a major role in ‘The Hobbit,’ and we’re having Ian McKellen reprise,” explained the filmmaker, who is executive-producing the flick and writing the screenplay. “There’s a couple of other characters: Elrond, who was played by Hugo Weaving [in the original films], and there’s a possibility of Galadriel, who was played by Cate Blanchett.”

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Peter JacksonThe search for Bilbo Baggins has begun. Casting on “The Hobbit” begins this week, with wide auditions expected for each part except Gandalf, which is being reserved for Ian McKellen, who played the wizard in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

“We’re auditioning for every role,” Jackson said in an interview, adding he is a big believer in casting a wide net to better match actors with the roles. “What we’ve done over the years is discover a lot of interesting actors, like Orlando Bloom (in ‘Rings’), Kate Winslet (in ‘Heavenly Creatures’), Saoirse Ronan (in ‘The Lovely Bones’). So if you start looking and auditioning seriously, it’s amazing what incredible talent you’ll find out there.”

Jackson denied that he had settled on any actors besides McKellen and pooh-poohed Web chatter that he has approached James McAvoy for a key role.  “Apart from Ian McKellen, who we obviously want to return as Gandalf, we are not really offering any roles to anybody until we’ve done a casting sweep,” Jackson said. Notable that Andy Serkis and Hugo Weaving were not mentioned with McKellen as actors reserved for their previous roles.  Was that on purpose or a simple oversight?  We are sure TORN posters will have some comments on this!  Read the entire article at The Hollywood Reporter.