Wellington will roll out its really, really long red carpet and throw a world-class party for “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” on November 28. The date of the event has been guessed about for months but today it was confirmed in New Zealand.

The Embassy Theatre has long been the expected spot of the premiere and today’s story confirms it, giving the beautiful site another world-class event to go along with its 2003 hosting of “The Return of the King.” (You can check out TORn’s scrapbook of that event right here.)

Middle-earth royalty, many from the film, would be likely to attend and walk down Wellington’s Courtenay Place which serves as a weekend hot-spot in Wellington that typically stays open until the sun rises.

“I know I speak for a company of hobbits, dwarves, elves and orcs when I say that this city holds a special place in all our hearts,” director Peter Jackson said of the event at www.stuff.co.nz.

“We cannot think of a more perfect way to send ‘The Hobbit’ off into the world than to celebrate with a huge party here in Wellington, where the journey began.”

TheOneRing.net, long friends with Red Carpet Tours, is supporting their longer tour of Middle-earth, one we definitely recommend, but also hope to put together a shorter trip focused on the premiere. You can read Red Carpet’s full itinerary and sign up while details for a micro-trip will be announced ASAP. In addition, both groups will host a joint party in Wellington at a hotel in central Wellington

The two films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” is currently filming and is expected to finish principal photography later this month with pickups for the first film scheduled for later. TheOneRing.net spent a five-week stint embedded on set for the films with content coming later, as agreed before the embed began. We also fully expect to cover the premiere, and everything else ‘Hobbit’ related, as possible.

Welcome to this months “Getting to know…” questions that need answering.

Julie and her daughter at Queenstown Feb 2012
Julie and her daughter at Queenstown Feb 2012 Tour

It’s based on the old Getting to know you threads that I used to post on the message boards here on TORn, so those familiar with them will know that the questions can be a little crazy and the answers even crazier.

This month we’re asking questions of Red Carpet Tours Julie James.

Continue reading “Getting to know Julie James of Red Carpet Tours”

PARK CITY — There were tears and cheers and moans and even laughs at absurd real-life characters in the new Peter Jackson-produced documentary, West Memphis Three, at its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

Directed by Amy Berg, the movie was commissioned by Jackson and wife Fran Walsh after the pair saw the first HBO documentary that spread the story of the West Memphis Three. The trio was convicted in 1994 of murdering three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas and has long been an the subject of intense media scrutiny. Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were, according to many, completely innocent and clearly wrongly convicted. The justice system of Arkansas does not agree.

Jackson and Walsh watched the original HBO documentary, Paradise Lost, that focuses on the case and the doubts that surround it. That original film has grown into three.

“It made us angry and it made us sad and we called Lori (Davis, Echol’s wife) and asked if there was anything we could do,” Jackson said. Continue reading “Peter Jackson brings Damien Echols from prison to Sundance, ‘West of Memphis’ points fingers”

From Ladbrokes.com: Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit may be a year from release but the new trailer has caused such a stir that Ladbrokes are already offering odds on it being the most successful JRR Tolkien adaptation yet.

Odds of 1/2 are being offered on the first of the two Hobbit films to be released surpassing the world box office takings of third Lord of the Rings film, Return of the King.

That film – released in December 2003 – was the highest grossing of the Lord of the Rings trilogy which took progressively more at the box office. [Read More]

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is set to premiere in Wellington in late November 2012, director Sir Peter Jackson and Prime Minister John Key announced today at the Hobbiton set in Waikato. Wellington previously hosted the world premiere of the final Lord of the Rings movie, Return of the King, in December 2003. Over 100,000 people packed into the city’s CBD to watch the preceding parade. “I think Warner Bros in particular were blown away by the Return of the King premiere – no one in the international industry could quite believe how the country got behind that,” Sir Peter said today.

See the full 11 minute press conference here. More..