Shooting of Sir Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films will begin in Wellington next month and a possible start date is one that fans would love – St Valentine’s Day.
Wellywood insiders have told The Dominion Post February 14 is when cameras will start rolling on the two films. However, Sir Ian McKellen – who is reprising his Lord of the Rings role as Gandalf – said via his website: “I am happy to say I start filming in Wellington on February 21, 2011.” Film publicist Melissa Booth confirmed filming would start next month but said the exact date had yet to be set. The films’ stars would soon be arriving in Wellington to launch the production. “It will be for a significant number of the actors. I don’t have a date yet, but I am hoping it will be in a couple of weeks’ time.” More..
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“The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films,” by Doug Adams, Carpetier, $59.95
It speaks to the longevity of the “Lord of the Rings,” films that ten years later, movie tie-in books are still being released. It speaks to the power of Howard Shore’s soundtrack and author Doug Adams presentation that “The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films,” is the best of LOTR movie-related book and worth the wait.
In fact, if you are still hanging on to some of your post-Christmas or other holiday gift money, this comprehensive account of Shore’s scores are your answer on how to spend. This volume is a must-own for fans of Peter Jackson’s trio of films adapting the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and film score fans.
Tolkien deserves more than a passing mention here because it is clear from Adams’ work that the written word played an important part in Shore’s process. Far beyond scoring a movie, the composer delved into Middle-earth’s history and cultures, creatures and characters in order to best service the film. The book helps elucidate the fact that Shore’s 10-plus hours of music were done with Tolkien in mind as much as Jackson and that Shore’s work stands alone as a musical interpretation of a work of fiction as well as one aspect of the films. Continue reading “Review: ‘Music of LOTR films’ best of tie-in books”
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James Gurney, author of Dinotopia, the best-selling fantasy series, has just written in his blog about some sketches he did for the folks at Weta. Simon Haupt of Weta’s digital creature department, gave a gift to the team: copies of Gurney’s latest book: Color and Light. Mr. Gurney personally sketched each of the copies. After the jump, you can also find some very nice comments made about the Weta team.
James Gurney is the best-selling author of the Dinotopia series, which was described by the Los Angeles Daily News as “…in the tradition of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and J.R.R. Tolkien… a triumph of the imagination.” His blog, Gurney Journey, is one the five most visited art blogs in the world. His two art books, Imaginative Realism and Color and Light are among amazon’s best-sellers in the category. Mr. Gurney has also painted for the National Geographic Magazine.
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Elijah Wood emphasized his role in ‘The Hobbit’ films will not effect the integrity of the story in a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter:
“There only would have been reservation about taking the part if there had been something that had infringed upon the integrity of the original book,” he says. “But that was never going to be the case.”
While the ‘Rings’ reunion is happening, the actor does not believe it will be a repeat session where the main actors opted for bonding tattoos during the filming of the original series.
“This time around, I don’t think so,” says Wood. “But you never know.”
[Read on]
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Continuing the new The Lord of the Rings statue line-up, Sideshow Collectibles placed the Legolas Statue on sale last Thursday. Unfortunately the exclusive edition sold out in a few hours, but the regular edition is still available for pre-order. In what looks to be one of the best sculpts of Orlando Bloom, this statue features Legolas as he’s about to pull an arrow from his quiver. For a complete gallery and ordering details, jump on over to SideshowCollectibles.com. Legolas is the third ‘new’ LOTR statue in the series, joining Gandalf the Grey (Exclusive Version is Available for Pre-Order) and Aragorn as Strider.
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Our sources are telling us that the always reliable (and great) film-on-disc website www.digitalbits.com is correct its Lord of The Rings Blu-ray news. Bill Hunt released the info in his column today. We had not heard a final decision had been reached but Hunt knows his stuff and can be trusted. This is both good and bad.
The good: Expect the extended-edition version of all three LOTR films in 2011. Warner will attempt to do these in (obviously) extremely high quality transfers that will fix minor items here and there and still likely put one movie on two discs rather than cram data to one disc and let quality suffer. Continue reading “LOTR Extended Blu-ray coming in 2011”
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