Welcome to our collection of TORn’s hottest topics for the past week. If you’ve fallen behind on what’s happening on the Message 
Boards, here’s a great way to catch the highlights. Or if you’re new to TORn and want to enjoy some great conversations, just follow the links to some of our most popular discussions. Watch this space as every weekend we will spotlight the most popular buzz on TORn’s Message Boards. Everyone is welcome, so come on in and join in the fun! Continue reading “TORn Message Boards Weekly Roundup – August 13, 2012”
Category: Hobbit Movie
Seventeen years have passed since Peter Jackson approached Miramax about bringing one of his favorite JRR Tolkien tales The Hobbit to the big screen.
Speaking to the Dominion Post‘s Lenna Tailor Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens speculate that the delay, during which they went on to shoot three wildly successful movies based on Tolkien Lord of the Rings, might have been for the best.
Jackson: “I remember in 1995 I made the first call to [Miramax’s] Harvey Weinstein and said we were interested in doing The Hobbit. The idea was, if it was successful, we would do Lord of the Rings. But Harvey said the rights were in a very complicated state — however, Lord of the Rings was potentially available. It’s strange how that call 17 years ago was the beginning of this whole process.”
“It was fate that we did Lord of the Rings first because it has made for a better Hobbit,” adds writer-producer Philippa Boyens. “It would’ve been a very different film if we’d gone the other way around. Maybe fate was also waiting for Martin [Freeman] to play Bilbo at exactly the right time and age.”
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Benjamin Secher of The Telegraph recently interviewed Benedict Cumberbatch. In today’s online edition, the Tele published a wide-ranging story where Cumberbatch speaks at length about his career to date, and his latest effort as a “repressed civil servant” in Parade’s End.
We get a bit more information on Smaug in The Hobbit, and how Cumberbatch played the role. For those just keen on reading Hobbit spoilers, highlight the bit just below!
“Filming The Hobbit brought challenges of a different kind. Although he plays two roles, a necromancer and Smaug (a fantastical villain he describes with undisguised glee as ‘a 400-year-old fire-breathing worm who lives in the middle of a mountain on top of a pile of gold, who is three or four times bigger than the Empire State Building and can fly’), he barely encountered any other members of the cast. He worked on his scenes with the director, Peter Jackson, shooting against a green screen while wearing a motion-capture suit. ‘It’s sort of a grey all-in-one jumpsuit, with a skullcap, a Madonna headset and Aboriginal-like face paint,’ he explains. ‘You feel like a tit in all that gear but Peter is so lovely you soon forget.’ ”
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During the San Diego Comic-con Andy Serkis spoke extensively about his portrayal of the character Gollum. In doing so, he made some startlingly specific comments about the character’s age.
Here, TORn guest writer Elpidha Lirgalad examines the implications, and reaches some very interesting conclusions about what it could mean for the Hobbit trilogy. These views are her own, and do not necessarily represent those of TheOneRing.net or its staff.
WARNING: Spoilers and speculation!
How old is PJ’s Gollum? And what could that mean?
A guest post by Elpidha Lirgalad
Ever since the release of Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001, some eagle-eyed fans have been asking why it appears that no time passes at all between Bilbo’s 111th birthday party and Frodo’s departure from the Shire. Continue reading “Greenbooks guest post: how old is PJ’s Gollum?”
As you probably know, Games Workshop creates tabletop war-gaming miniatures. One of the licenses it holds is for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
The clever folks on our message boards have very recently unearthed on Pastebin a list of film-related gaming miniatures that GW is set to release in the near future. This is potentially of interest not only to tabletop gamers, but also to film spoiler hunters.
It’s hard to to know far one can legitimately extrapolate from this list to scenes, and creatures, that might make it into the movies, but there is certainly heaps of food for thought here! If you want to put in your two cents, head on over to our message boards where a healthy discussion is going on about the implications.
Full list below the cut — and, be warned, plenty of potential spoilers too! Continue reading “Games Workshop minatures list holds Hobbit spoilers?”
On this mornings New Zealand’s TVNZ Breakfast Show they interviewed Barry Humphries (the voice of the The Goblin King) about his role in The Hobbit and about his farewell tour “Eat, Pray, Laugh!” for his iconic alter-ego Dame Edna Everage.