The kind folks at Phoenix Comicon have invited TheOneRing.net to host a panel on The Hobbit, with our popular ‘Sneak Peak at the Desolation of Smaug’ we debuted at Wondercon earlier this Spring. Any and all new and breaking news will be included with the breakdown of Peter Jackson’s Sneak Peak, along with commentary and discussion with the audience. The panel will be on Friday at 6pm in room 122ABC, and I hope to see many of you in attendance.
This reporter, Garfeimao, will be at the convention all weekend long, but will only be participating in the one panel. The rest of the time, I can be found at one of the many Babylon 5 20th anniversary panels and events, a show that has a definite thematic tie to The Lord of the Rings. For Scifi and Fantasy fans in Phoenix and around Arizona, this is one of the biggest genre events of the year for you, and now you can add Tolkien to the mix.
There is one other Hobbit related panel, on Thursday, May 23 at 6pm there will be a Fan Panel for The Hobbit discussing the current and upcoming films, as well as mentioning previous attempts around the globe. No panelists are listed yet, but this sounds like a lot of fun since it’s more or less a ‘talk back’ session. For information regarding other guests, panels and how to attend, go to Phoenix Comicon. If any of you AZ Ringers want to meet up, feel free to email me at Garfeimao@TheOneRing.net so we can set up a little Moot.
General Manager of Weta Limited Tim Launder teased what’s to come from Weta Workshop over the next few months with a post at The Shadow and Flame message board. From his post there are some big things to come via The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit including something totally new for The Hobbit collectibles. If you love the work Weta does as much as I do this announcement has you super excited!
Shows
We had a wonderful time in April, attending 3 shows in Melbourne and the Gold Coast of Australia, and our first visit to CalgaryExpo in Canada. It was exciting to meet some new and old Flamers in person for the first time. We were especially grateful for the kind donations of chocolate for the crew !
Most of us just got back to work on Monday, a bit tired, but ready to get going again. And of course, we are only 2 months away from the Big Show; San Diego Comic Con. Time flies, we can’t wait ! We will be in the same booth space (3513B) as last year. This has now become our own Weta booth, we are no longer sharing someone else’s space. We will have our largest ever team of Weta crew at Comic Con this year. We’ll be announcing names soon. Please come and say Hi We are shipping out a container full of goodies to San Diego at the end of May, full of confidential, new stuff. We still have lots of work to do, as there are always a handful of items packed in at the last minute.
The Hobbit – 1/6th scale polystone range
We have now launched the first seven pieces in the 1/6th scale range: Thorin, Gandalf, Bilbo, Dwalin, Balin, Bombur and Gollum. Thanks so much to all of you who have supported this range, we consider these to be the best quality sculptures we have created. This will be our signature line for The Hobbit trilogy of movies and we have several more outstanding pieces in production. A lot of thought has gone into the poses, and how the various characters could be displayed together. We expect this will become clearer over time. We will most likely unveil the next sculpture in the range in July.
Some of you have asked why there are no creatures launched yet ? The reason is that most of the creatures are created in digital form for the films, and the digital work is normally finalized very late in the film making process. So therefore we could not start work on these creatures until very late last year. But never fear, they are coming !
The Hobbit – Environments
We had hoped to have launched an environment by now. We were actually building a few pieces last year. But once the decision was made to change from 2 to 3 movies, we had to put them on hold until the second movie is released.
The good news is that we do have 2 new environments in production now, so you will be seeing them at some stage soon.
The Hobbit – New Polystone Product Ranges !
Over the next few months, we will be launching some new smaller scale pieces, priced under US$100, including a few special pre-releases from the upcoming movie The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Look out for these at Comic Con!
The Hobbit – Prop Replicas
Our Staves have been extremely popular. The first production of both the Staff of Radagast the Brown and the Staff of Gandalf the Grey, sold out even before they arrived in our warehouses. The second and final production run will take place over the next few months and we hope to release these final pieces before the end of 2013. We strongly suggest pre-ordering to ensure you don’t miss out.
The Key to Erebor is our highest selling item. We have sold out our stocks twice and are struggling to keep up with production
Daniel Reeve has had a great time creating hand made Contracts and Maps.
Jewelry from Middle-earth
Our new range of Jewelry from Middle-earth has been a huge hit, especially The One Ring in gold plated tungsten carbide, created by Jens Hansen Gold and Silversmith. We continue to struggle to keep up with supply for this item, the Evenstar and the Elven Leaf Brooch
We have a new Stone Pendant launching in the next week. Keep an eye out for it
The Hobbit – Maps and Art Prints
We now have a room in our office dedicated to storing tubes with all the Maps and art prints created by the artists who worked on the movies. We will continue to expand this range and would be grateful for a poll to vote on the scenes you’d like to see from LOTR and The Hobbit.
If you are coming to Comic Con in July, this would be a great opportunity to get some of these art prints signed.
You can also expect to see something new from Daniel Reeve soon too
The Lord of the Rings
There are a couple of items in production from LOTR.
The Fellowship of the Ring – Set 2 starts arriving in our warehouses over the next month, and will be followed up by Set 3 in a few months time. All three sets look fantastic displayed together, with a mirror set behind them, as we have done in the Weta Cave
We will also be releasing a new sculpture of Arwen soon, as part of the range of smaller scale pieces; Gollum, Gandalf and Strider
Next shipment
Our next shipments arrive in our 3 warehouses in the US, UK and NZ over the next month, including new pieces such as:
The Fellowship of the Ring – Set 2
The Pipe of Fili the Dwarf
The Staff of Gandalf the Grey (already sold out)
Gollum Enraged
Changing Warehouses in the US
In late May / early June, we will be changing our warehouse in the US. So if you are planning to make any orders in the near future, we recommend making your order in the next 2 weeks.
And for customers in North America, we will be announcing a range of special offers early next week, to help us reduce our inventory before we move to the new warehouse. Watch out for this in our next newsletter !
The creative forces behind television’s “The Amazing Race” wants to put Tolkienites, including TheOneRing.net readers, in a competition based reality show with a fantasy flair. TheOneRing.net spoke with casting director Paul Gordon about the new series that is coming to a major television network this year. Expect an announcement and promotion soon.
“There is a potential for people to live out their dreams and we want to give them a platform,” Gordon said.
The concept of the show, called “The Quest,” is to put fans of genre entertainment in a competitive environment tailored to highlight participants’ love of fantasy and adventure.
“It is cool, it is “The Amazing Race” in Middle-earth.”
A “Lord of the Rings,” Executive Producer is also on board. The project has been on the drawing board for a while, but now all the pieces are together – except finding the cast.
“We don’t do profile shows – this is not ‘Jersey Shore.’ This is not ‘Honey Boo Boo.’ The drama here is not, ‘That B!#@% stole my milk!’ There is no contrived drama, we don’t need it.”
Instead, the show wants to find people willing dive in fully and accept the quest to be a hero.
“We want people who are willing to go there with us. We want people who love this stuff. We are definitely looking for personalities – competitive people – not people sitting in a house. You are competing. Where it is LARP or D&D or baseball or basketball, you are going to get revved up.”
TORn tried to find a lead on age or interest or demographic or type that would help land roles but Gordon insisted that on a big network, they were casting a wide net, looking for personality and especially one character trait: “We love people who are competitive – we want this to be important, we want to see them go for it. They might be quiet competitive, might be sneaky competitive, there are many different ways to be competitive.”
He also tried to stress that there are television shows around that poke fun at those invested in niche entertainment and that is not this show.
“Big networks go after everybody (for their audience) and we also look at it as a teaching show. People look at things like DragonCon as unusual – we want people to understand why people do this.
“People laugh at this and say that is not our thing and a lot of what we like to do is teach people.”
“It is so similar, it is shocking to me. It is more familiar than you realize. There are whole sections at Eagles games – people go there and pretend they are something else and think they affect this thing. If they only knew how similar they are!”
Those wishing to enter the selection process can do so by email or by showing up in select cities at early-season conventions to meet with the Emmy winning folks behind the camera. Anybody able to show up in person at the following events, he promised, will be considered.”If you show up to an event, we will look at every single person. ”
The production will be looking in the following cities:
Seattle (coinciding with EMP Fantasy Exhibit Opening) – April 25
Chicago– C2E2 – April 27
Texas – Dallas Comic Con – May 18th
Phoenix – Comic Con – May 25
New York – No event planned yet, will hold VIP invite event for those in the area who apply
Philadelphia – Wizard Con – May 1
This Thursday Gordon will be in Seattle to meet potential candidates, mail TheQuestCasting@gmail.com with the subject RSVP Seattle. They want your name, age, location, a photo, your interest and why you would be perfect for the show.
But anybody in fandom can send in an application to TheQuestCasting@gmail.com, Seattle or no. Include in that email: Your name:
Your age:
Your email:
Current location:
Current photo:
Your hobby/fascination: (Tolkien, Game of Thrones, LARPing, Cosplay) What makes you perfect for a show like this:
If they like what they see, they can schedule an interview or, worst case, they will Skype with candidates.
“We have 13 Emmy’s, nine with Amazing Race. No one (in reality shows) can say that. We are doing award-winning stuff and we never do a show that is fake.”
Profiles Television is behind the show.
So where will all this happen?
“I can’t tell you,” Gordon said, “But it is pretty freaking cool.”
The Bridge Direct fresh off the success of their line of figures for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey are releasing some information regarding when we might see wave two. This wave will commence under The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug which hit store shelves October 15th. This wave will have the same style of figures that we saw in wave one but we will see characters we did not see as well as new characters. The Bridge Direct also announced they will once again have an exclusive figure at Comic-Con in July of this year.
Update: We just received some awesome pictures of a few of the upcoming items. So a gallery has been added to this post.
Per the info we know so far for Wave Two:
3.75” SCALE ACTION FIGURES
o New assortment includes Radagast, Thranduil, Azog, Beorn and Gandalf
o Each figure features 12 points of articulation and replicates the authentic facial features, clothing, weapons and accessories of the character in painstaking detail.
o SRP $7.99 each
3.75” SCALE ACTION FIGURE BOX SETS – Three New Packs!
Mirkwood Pack: Legolas, Tauriel, Thranduil, Fili and Kili
Thorin Oakenshield Adventure Pack: Nori, Ori, Dori, Gloin and Thorin
Bilbo Baggins Burglar Pack: Bifur, Bombur, Bofur, Oin and Exclusive 3.75″ Invisible Bilbo
SRP $29.99 each
6” SCALE COLLECTOR FIGURES
New assortment includes Radagast, Azog and Legolas
Each collector figure features intricate details replicating the character’s facial features, clothing, weapons and accessories.
If you’re going to be in Calgary, Canada this weekend and you’re a fan of the work Weta Workshop then make your way to The Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo is this weekend April 26-28th. This will be Weta’s first time at the show! So if you’re a fan of Middle-earth, TinTin, and Dr. Grordbort’s make sure you visit booth number Z-603 where you can get Weta Treasure cards good for discounts and prizes via the Weta Website.
Weta Goes to Calgary
Woohoo – Weta will be attending the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo 2013.
When: April 26-28, 2013
Where: The BMO Centre, Stampede Park, Calgary, Alberta
The Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo is the only festival in Calgary where you can get your sci-fi, film, television, fantasy, horror, comic book, gaming, and animation fix all in one incredible weekend. Join 60,000 other fans for this celebration of pop culture.
We are absolutely thrilled to have been invited by the organisers and we’ve been eagerly packing cool stuff from Middle-earth and beyond onto trucks and into planes to have a great range available to purchase at the Weta booth. Our booth number is Z-603 (Please Note: due to some international systems issues, we will only be able to accept cash at our booth – we cannot accept any payment cards).
This is our first ever show in Canada and we can’t wait to hook up with our fans and friends at the convention.
Richard Taylor and David Tremont will be at the Weta Booth along with Ri, Tim and Stacy.
This year the Calgary Expo will feature a variety of guests from different industries. From film and television stars to make-up artists, writers, comic book creators, cosplay specialists and much more – the Calgary Expo covers every corner of pop culture imaginable!
There will be over 600 exhibitors, artists, and special guests, all in one spot!
Welcome Ringers to the latest installment of our LIVE show TORn TUESDAY, with host Clifford “Quickbeam” Broadway. Today’s show will investigate and celebrate the community building effort that was the #votebilbo campaign that lit the fires of Tolkien fandom around the globe. You can pop into our Barliman’s Chat Room that is built-into our Live Event page here, bring your questions and comments during our webcast! The fun begins at approx 5:00pm Pacific Daylight Time right here — we’ll see you there! Follow Cliff on Twitter at @Quickbeam2000!
The kind folks at Phoenix Comicon have invited TheOneRing.net to host a panel on The Hobbit, with our popular ‘Sneak Peak at the Desolation of Smaug’ we debuted at Wondercon earlier this Spring. Any and all new and breaking news will be included with the breakdown of Peter Jackson’s Sneak Peak, along with commentary and discussion with the audience. The panel will be on Friday at 6pm in room 122ABC, and I hope to see many of you in attendance.
