Since the news of problems for the long standing The Hobbit pub in Southampton surfaced a few days ago, many fans have jumped onboard to support the pub, including a few involved in the current movie production. Stephen Fry pretty much brought the story to everyone’s attention a few days back, and now Sir Ian McKellen is adding his support. You can read his reaction on his Blog.
*Breaking News*
And just as details of this latest news were coming in, reports now appear that might indicate a solution is on the horizon. You can read details at the Daily Echo. They will be updating that blog shortly with reaction from locals, so raise a pint everyone and keep your Hobbity fingers crossed this hiccup is resolved.
Not quite in time for St Patrick’s Day, but shortly thereafter, fans will at last be able to read an Irish language version of The Hobbit. The book has been translated into Gaelic by Nicholas Williams, and will be published by Evertype on March 25th. More details here. Thanks to ringerspy Riccardo for the news. Middle Earth go Bragh!
Bilbo and SmaugDenmark is hosting a Tolkien event, a reading from The Hobbit no less, approved by royalty. While we really wish we were in the neighborhood, it might be a little distant for our staff to drop in. However, for readers in Europe, this sounds pretty great! The info we received:
“The royal Danish Court has approved of Bri – The Tolkien Society of Copenhagen doing a reading from the Hobbit at the art museum Arken for this year’s Reading Day, by the LotR-inspired art of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. We hope to see as many interested and inspired people as possible there, in your finest get-ups. We can’t wait to meet you!
The event will be marts 25, 13.00-15.00.
Skovvej 100
2635 Ishøj
Denmark”
Further info can be found here and here.
Tolkien Forever will hold our annual Reading Day on March 24, from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m., at the Cat and Fiddle, 6530 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles. Since 2012 marks the 75th year since the publication of “The Hobbit” and will also see the release of Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”, it is also not unexpected that the theme of Reading Day 2012 will be “The Hobbit”.
Editors note: The image links to a High-Res version, feel free to print and share with other fans.
Speaking with MTV about working with Peter Jackson on The Hobbit, actor Benedict Cumberbatch (who’s been cast in the role of both Smaug and The Necromancer) dished a bit about the work he’s done thus far on the films.
Excerpts follow:
I was in isolation with [Peter Jackson] and this incredible tag team. And at the very cool place with that technology doing mo-cap for two characters, Smaug the dragon and another character, which will remain nameless, and it was an awful lot of fun.
I spent a lot of time recording voice as well as doing movements. So, it was sort of freeing; it was fun. It was like playing a game. It’s going to be an amazing film; it’s going to be a real treat.
Catch the entire interview over at MTV. Many thanks to message board member f00 for the heads-up!
In the US, tournament frenzy hits every March with the onset of the NCAA’s Men’s Basketball March Madness tournament. We thought this year would be a good opportunity for the entire Tolkien community to participate in a special tournament of our own. So without further delay we are announcing the Middle-earth Madness Tournament! The goal is to settle, once and for all, which character is favored most by Tolkien fans worldwide. To start off the process, the staff at TheOneRing.net compiled a list of 46 finalists. We need to weed this list down to 32 total contestants. To do that, we are going to ask you to vote for up to three characters in the poll below. Voting will be open until Feb 29th at Noon ET. We will then compile the results and create our tournament bracket with seeding based on total votes. It should be noted, much like the men’s basketball tournament in, our Middle-earth Madness selection committee does reserve the right to adjust results a bit in the spirit of competition. (and like the men’s basketball committee, some of the decisions are sure to be controversial!!) So without further delay, let the voting begin!
Since the news of problems for the long standing The Hobbit pub in Southampton surfaced a few days ago, many fans have jumped onboard to support the pub, including a few involved in the current movie production. Stephen Fry pretty much brought the story to everyone’s attention a few days back, and now Sir Ian McKellen is adding his support. You can read his reaction on his Blog.
