Today is Elijah Wood’s Birthday! Elijah Jordan Wood (born January 28, 1981) is an American actor. Making his film debut with a minor part in the Back to the Future Part II (1989), he landed a succession of subsequent larger roles and became a critically acclaimed child actor by age 13.

After his high-profile role as the Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, he has resisted typecasting by choosing varied roles in critically-acclaimed films such as Bobby, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sin City, Green Street and Everything Is Illuminated. Most recently he starred in the film Day Zero (2007) and provided the voice of the main character, Mumble, in the award-winning animated film Happy Feet. He also played an American tourist turned vampire in Paris, je t’aime. In 2005, he started his own record label, Simian Records. His next project is the upcoming Iggy Pop biopic The Passenger.

Wellington, NEW ZEALAND — 28 January 2010 — NetApp announced today it has partnered with Weta Digital, a world leader in digital effects and animation, to provide data storage for the production of the record-breaking film, Avatar. Avatar was filmed with revolutionary new motion-capture techniques, which generated more data than any other movie in history (more than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy combined), creating a new set of challenges never before faced by the digital effects industry. More..

From the MTV Movies Blog:  The fantastic performance by Elijah Wood in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of “The Lord Of The Rings” trilogy has set the bar for hobbit roles everywhere. Well before Frodo there was Bilbo, star of Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming adaptation of “The Hobbit”. ” When MTV’s Josh Horowitz spoke to Wood at Sundance this week, he asked the “Rings” star who his pick would be for the as-yet-uncast role.

“I honestly love the initial rumor from way back when, which was James McAvoy,” he said.

He’s not alone. As anyone who saw and enjoyed “Wanted” knows, McAvoy is able to capture the right blend of bumbling goofiness and reflexive courage that is so necessary to capturing the Bilbo Baggins character.

“I think he would be fantastic,” Wood said. “I’m a fan of his work and I think he’s the right age and I think that he has a quality to him that could fit quite nicely with what Ian Holm did in the first movie.”

You can read the article here: MTV Movies Blog

After nearly 19 months away from the spotlight, a new King Kong — more grizzled and, definitely, ferocious — is preparing to return to Universal Studios Hollywood. Since the old animatronic Kong was destroyed in a fire on the theme park’s back lot, Hollywood’s top visual effects wizards have been tinkering away in a giant hangar in Playa Vista to create a new, more realistic ape to terrify visitors who take the park’s signature back lot studio tour.

Inside the humongous drab-green building, Academy Award-winning director Peter Jackson has led a team of film and theme park ride experts in creating a 3-D version of the hairy ape to replace the Kong that died in the June 2008 fire. More..

LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–StudioGPU has entered into an agreement with Weta Workshop, a multiple Oscar® winning one-stop studio servicing the world’s creative industries, to integrate and further develop StudioGPU MachStudio™ Pro for its television production pipeline. MachStudio Pro real-time 3D workflow and rendering software allows artists, designers, engineers, directors, and technical directors (TDs) to work with 3D lighting, camera views and multi-point perspectives in an interactive non-linear fashion with real-time high fidelity views as they will appear in the final rendered format. More..

Sideshow Collectibles continues their Premium Format line-up of Lord of the Rings characters with Gandalf the Grey. From the facebook post they just published, we know that the crystal in Gandalf’s staff will have a light-up feature. The piece priority pre-orders on Friday at 10AM PT at SideshowCollectibles.com. If you are not familiar with the priority pre-order process, you need to be a member of the Sideshow newsletter to be eligible to order the exclusive version of this statue. For full details, check out Sideshow’s website preview. [Gandalf the Grey Preview] [Lord of the Rings In Stock Items]