A report has appeared in Scotland’s Daily Record stating that representatives of Amazon Studios were scouting filming locations for their Lord of the Rings TV project in Scotland over the summer. This story is light on details, so we at TORn are treating this information as rumors, for now. These location scouts purportedly traveled as tourists, checking out various locales around Scotland, which offered the opportunity for a meaningful connection with the local communities. Continue reading “Is Amazon Studios scouting LOTR filming locations outside of New Zealand?”
Category: Hobbit Movie
If you’re like me and you’re a big fan of Jerry Vanderstelt’s work, you’re going to love the Thranduil: King of the Woodland Realm art print and will want to add it to your collection. As you may remember a couple years ago Weta Workshop unveiled the very cool Thranduil on Elk statue. This superb print by Jerry Vanderstelt captures the same majesty as the statue, and gives you a peek at just what might have been going on around Thranduil in that moment. As always, Jerry gives fans multiple ways to add this print to their collection, ranging from a high quality paper giclee to a 28×36 gallery wrapped print. This allows fans to get something for whatever their collecting budget allows. Limited to 2000 pieces it won’t last long, so do not hesitate to snag this one today!
This past week, the New Zealand Government and executives from Amazon TV held a meeting in an effort to address concerns about a lack of studio capacity in Auckland. This planned 5 season LOTR series is a big production that will require quite a lot of studio space for filming, post production facilities and local crews, so of course they want to make sure the resources exist that they need. It appears that a decision or deal may be made within the next month, so we don’t have long to wait. You can see the source of this story at Stuff.Co.NZ.
You may be wondering why Auckland and not Wellington, but that is easily explained by the fact that the Avatar trilogy of films currently in pre-production will soon be moving into full production. While the Amazon LOTR production will be big, Avatar is going to be much bigger, and there may or may not be enough room for both as far as studio and post-production facilities go.
This leads to a much bigger debate on whether or not this new series should look and feel much like the existing Middle-earth films or whether it should blaze its own path for design and locations. The appeal to any production of not having to look for too many new locations can’t be understated. Film and TV productions are always having to research and locate interesting places that fit what the production needs, so the fact that so many locations in New Zealand have already been established as feeling like Middle-earth is a boon. But then, there are hundreds of beautiful places around the world, and with chunks of filming now happening in studios, does it really matter where those studios are? Is it possible that Amazon can do location filming in New Zealand and Studio work in London, Hollywood or Vancouver? Or why not film in British Columbia, or Northern Ireland or Slovenia for that matter?
Welcome to TORn’s The Return of the King Geeky Observations List 15th Anniversary Redux!
Good news is never late. It arrives precisely when means to. If you’ve been following our friends from Weta then you know the last little bit has had some very cool news for collectors. One of the most popular statues from The Hobbit line came from the character of Tauriel. She sold out pretty quickly and on the secondary market can come at a pretty high price. Fans have been asking for a new statue of the character, and that wish has finally been granted. You can grab the new Tauriel for $349, which is a fair amount under the price on ebay. She comes with an edition size of only 800 pieces so she’s likely to not be around too long, and you can expect her to land in your collection in March of next year.
Welcome to The Great Hall of Poets, our regular monthly feature showcasing the talent of Middle-earth fans. Each month we will feature a small selection of the poems submitted, but we hope you will read all of the poems that we have received here in our Great Hall of Poets.
So come and join us by the hearth and enjoy!
If you have a Tolkien/Middle-earth inspired poem you’d like to share, then send it to poetry@theonering.net One poem per person may be submitted each month. Please make sure to proofread your work before sending it in. TheOneRing.net is not responsible for poems posting with spelling or grammatical errors.