For those attending viewings of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ this weekend, you may find yourself listening to the end of Howard Shore’s ‘The Bridge of Khazad Dum’ playing as part of the brand new ‘Man of Steel’ teasers. If you have seen The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, you know (SPOILERS) that when Gandalf falls at the bridge, we have an amazingly emotional and dramatic score to accompany this significant event. I get chills just thinking of the scene. Now, for better or worse, that same theme is used to build emotion for the next attempt to revive the Superman franchise. How do you feel about it? Share your thoughts in the comments, our forum and on Facebook! If you somehow managed to go through the last 10 years without owning Howard Shore’s award-winning score, we highly suggest you pick up today! (There are obviously many versions of the score to own, so browse around a bit) [LOTR:FOTR Score
Category: Hobbit Movie
One can always count on Entertainment Weekly to compose some intriguing ‘Top’ lists. Their latest is the ‘Top 50 Most Vile Movie Villains,’ and sure enough, many classic villains are well represented. Among the top 50, only one Tolkien ‘villain‘ makes the list at No. 10:
He may only be a CGI character, but the conflicted, bipolar Gollum managed to be both cute and scary — a feat we hadn’t seen accomplished since Gremlins. Love him or hate him, you can’t deny that his tendency to break out into cheerful song in between ruthlessly chasing the ring of power was, well, precious. Plus, he bit off Frodo’s fingers. And that’s pretty bad-ass. —Kate Ward
This reporter never really saw Gollum as a ‘villain’ per se, but hey, to each their own! For the complete list, jump on over to EW.com today! [Read More]
For lovers and collectors of movie tie-in books, Houghton Mifflin is releasing a slew of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey tie-in books for adults and kids over the coming months. Veteran collectors will note the involvement of Jude Fisher and Brian Sibley.
However, the first of these is a movie tie-in edition of The Hobbit published by Mariner books that will debut on September 18. If the prints of the “movie” versions of the Lord of the Rings are a good guide (and we are pretty sure they are), the text will remain the same, with the cover an iconic image taken from the film.
Houghton Mifflin sent a full list list to reviews.libraryjournal.com of the of books will hit bookstores on November 6.
Check the full list under the cut. Continue reading “Hobbit movie’s book tie-ins debut in November”
Balancing mega-blockbusters and character-driven independent films, Hugo Weaving musters the high style necessary for a elven lord, an evil computer program, and a malevolent transformer, all while retaining the subtlety to fuel more small-scale films. His latest, Last Ride, (which although completed three years ago has only recently debuted in selected USA cinemas) is one of the latter. In it, Weaving plays an abusive ex-convict who takes his estranged son along as they flee through the Australian outback.
Here, he speaks to AV Club about some of the roles he’s played over the years.
[More]
Talking to USA Today’s Brian Truitt in San Diego, Peter Jackson talks about raising the bar for The Hobbit, with a new movie technology. Peter Jackson says using 48 fps “gives you an illusion of life that’s so much more vivid than 24 frames does,” he says.
“The entire industry is in some respect waiting to see what happens with The Hobbit. I’m very happy to be the guinea pig.”
Jackson predicts that by the time The Hobbit is released, there will be several tent-pole studio movies that will be using the technology.
If not, he says that the industry might as well throw in the towel. Read more [here]
Ringer Kellyduck sends us this link to what appears to be a substantial partial transcript of the press conference the Hobbit crew gave at Comic-Con last weekend.
I don’t think this is the entire press conference, but it is certainly a substantial part. We also now have some partial video too. (Sorry folks, I know you all want it to see it, but there’s still no showreel footage.)
At the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con, Peter Jackson — joined by The Hobbit cast members Martin Freeman, Andy Serkis, Ian McKellen, and Richard Armitage — said there are other parts of Tolkien’s stories he’d like to be able to tell. Sitting down for a small press conference after the Hall H presentation, Jackson talked about his hopes for shooting more footage. Along with his cast, Jackson discussed revisiting the world he brought to the screen in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, technological advances, and the 48 frames per second debate.
Choice quote from Martin Freeman: I was struck by just how emotional people were talking about the film, talking about anticipating the film. With each question came a preamble about what the previous films have meant in people’s lives. So all cliches aside, it’s a really nice thing to be part of something that actually touches people, genuinely touches people. It’s quite a lovely thing.
MrCere breaking in here. I was planning to report this whole press conference but real life, travel and DragonCon have prevented it and now this transcript is here, so anything I write seems less useful to readers now. The transcript isn’t word-for-word, it has removed the “uhms” and a similar words so the quotes are cleaned up, but it is accurate and easier to read this way. The questions are much more cleaned up. For example: The first one was mine and I said I would love to hear the response from the panel about Hall H, especially from those who were there for the first time. Martin Freeman spoke up, answered then the moderator moved on. (I especially wanted to also hear from Richard Armitage since we talked about things like Comic-Con while in New Zealand but sadly the moment was lost.) Anyway, I didn’t listen to the whole recording but it seems complete to me. Oh, but I do have some photos after the break.
[Partial transcript | [Partial video] | [TORn’s Ultimate Round-up] Continue reading “Comic-Con ‘Hobbit’ press conference transcript”