Tyler writes: It seems Tolkien Enterprises has changed their name to Middle-earth Enterprises. Their site is now www.middleearth.com, and you can go there for more information.
Month: April 2010
Moviefone scored an interview with Peter Jackson about the pair of ‘Hobbit’ movies that have been burning up internet bandwidth as every site remotely related to popular culture has been scrambling to get the lowdown on what in the devil has been going on. Director Guillermo del Toro has feed us information on our message boards and we have some reliable sources, but producer Jackson set the record strait on a couple of important facts:
* He says the 2nd script is now finished. “So the studio’s got both scripts now, which is a milestone,” said Jackson.
* The two movies haven’t been “delayed” because they never had a schedule
* No actors have been cast because the film hasn’t received a greenlight from the studios
* He confirmed our report about the MGM situation slowing up the start of production
You can read the whole story right here. Thanks to Magpie on our message boards and the blog of TORn friend Doug Adams on his LOTR music blog.
Gandalf has joined the opposition to the controversial Wellywood sign. Sir Ian McKellen, who played the famous wizard in The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, says he is baffled by Wellington Airport’s effort to erect the sign, which would mimic the famous Hollywood version.
“I think that would be a very odd sign to put up,” he told The Dominion Post from London yesterday. “It isn’t like New Zealand film-makers want to be like the American film industry – they absolutely don’t,” he said. Wellington was “stuffed with people who don’t want to work in Hollywood”. More.
Up until now Britain has lacked it’s own credible superhero and those looking for feats of supernatural prowess tended to turn to the United States, but Candleman may be about to change that.
Candleman’s author Glenn Dakin, who has already written for characters such as “Postman Pat” and “Spiderman,” spoke to Reuters about where the inspiration for his first original creation came from and the state of British publishing.
Q: Where did the idea for the book come from?
A: The spark for it came of The Hobbit. There’s a line in it where Gandalf the wizard has a sword that glows in the presence of danger or murder. I liked that idea. It sounded whimsical and old-fashioned, almost Victorian. It led me into writing a story about a modern-day boy who’s inherits the creepy baggage of a Victorian crime-fighter. More.
Roheryn writes: The Professor’s grandson Simon Tolkien will be interviewed in the second hour of NPR’s “The Diane Rehm Show” today. Check local public radio listings. An archived audio file of this program will be available after the program airs. More..
Pre-Order ‘The Inheritance (Hardcover)’ by Simon Tolkien on Amazon.com
Carlene writes: Wired.com is having a vote on which book “everyone” should be reading at the same time to form “one big international book club.” My suggestion was “The Hobbit.”. According to the article ,”the aim with One Book, One Twitter is — like the one city, one book program which inspired it — is to get a zillion people all reading and talking about a single book.” Let’s try to get more folks to vote for “The Hobbit!” Wired.com Article and voting here!