Category: Hobbit Movie
Well, looks like nobody will go broke making Middle-earth movies. The third of Peter Jackson’s films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” squeaked past $800 million earned world-wide last weekend. Jackson can get on with his “Tin Tin” movie and maybe my wish that he will write and direct a World War I zombie film with 100 percent practical effects in conjunction with Weta Workshop can happen. Maybe not.
But it is time to take a little peek at the box office and see how things are going. If you didn’t hear, another Warner Bros. movie, “American Sniper” assassinated the January box office records in the U.S. while the final Hobbit film slid to eighth place after 30-some days of release. Rentrack tells us it made $4 million on the weekend for a grand total of $244,537,115 domestic. It isn’t quite done, so lets call it $250 million but it will be closer to $260.
Meanwhile, overseas, from 63 territories, it has taken $558,600,000. (Speaking of “Taken” the third one of those movies just made an avalanche of money – see gold pile above – so go ahead and bet on number four. With every new sequel, a legion of devils get their wings; but Hollywood doesn’t care.)
One big market, a dragon of a market if you will, China, hasn’t opened the film yet and so that non-U.S. total is expected to reach past $700 million. This puts Jackson’s final Middle-earth movie very close, but not over $1 billion. Now, it is nothing but an arbitrary mark and a game, but something satisfies our lizard brains to know the film made 1/28th of what Bill Gates has donated to charity.
Can China and the rest of the world world push their share to $750 million or beyond? This film was tracking ahead of the previous one, that finished just more than $700 million, so it is going to be very close, but I can’t find the complete data and my bed calls. More updates in a week – or two.
One thing that isn’t great about being a fansite: Other outlets and readers treat anything we write as if it were written from a fan perspective. Sometimes that is true, sometimes it is false. As a result of this, we didn’t complain about Oscar Nominations; It just sounds like whining anyway.
For the record, while we are here, there are a few categories that are head scratchers though. The technical category omissions, in my opinion, are a mark against the awards. Films that win these categories generate buzz and these Hobbit films didn’t do that in the right way to win awards. All the folks who work on the film would say they didn’t get into the business to win awards and they are only a bit of extra icing anyway.
But WIRED, not a fansite, has a video series about special visual effects and the series is highly watchable, educational and interesting. (Special effects are things that happen on set.) Staffer Justin pointed out this video from the series where the host expresses real surprise that BOTFA didn’t get a nom. He has some wonderful details about the attack on Lake-town in particular (a favorite set piece of mine, burning or not) and the advancement of the computer program MASSIVE created for the battles in the LOTR films. The folks in New Zealand were pushing boundaries as they do every single time.
It is well worth a watch and it lights a fire under me, at least, to get annoyed that Weta Digital didn’t get an Oscar nom for Best Visual Effcts — except they did get one for “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.” That does mean Gentleman Joe Letteri will be in Los Angeles so on Oscar night, after he attended previous parties, we will be sure to invite him to our celebration this year. Continue reading “‘The Hobbit: BOTFA’ and its shocking VFX exclusion from the Oscar race”
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 active discussions. Watch this space as we spotlight the most popular buzz on TORn’s Message Boards. Everyone is welcome, so come on in and join the fun!
Continue reading “TORn Message Boards Weekly Roundup – January 18, 2015”
The folks at Gwaith-i-Phethain, The Fellowship of the Word-smiths on the Elendilion website, have just finished analysing and translating the Sindarin dialogue from The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies.
They’ve set up a page with and with translations of the Sindarin dialogue of Tauriel, Galadriel, Legolas, etc. by Hungarian linguist Gábor Lőrinczi. Continue reading “Translations from Elvish: dialogue from The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies”
As we posted on our Facebook page last night, today (Friday, January 16) will be the FINAL DAY to pledge for ‘full’ tickets for our One Last Party event.
Tickets for the Perk Pledge levels Expected Party Goer and Rivendell Reveller will only be available until MIDNIGHT PST tonight! Continue reading “An important campaign reminder from The One Last Party!”