Guillermo Del ToroShawn Adler over at the MTV Movie Blog is going to have an opportunity to interview Guillermo del Toro next week and he wants you to submit your questions:

Now it’s time to return the favor. Next week I’ll be speaking with newly minted “Hobbit” director Guillermo Del Toro, and I want you to give me some good questions that I can bring with me. No fair repeating a question he answered in our last chat or in his recent Q&A – we want news. So fire away, Tolkien fans. If you leave a name, I’ll tell him it came from you, and we’ll post video of his response online.

Read the full article over at the MTV Movie Blog. [Read More]

Mount DoomTheOneRing.net boards are always active with all types of of interesting discussions. Here is one that jumped out at me today from board member Dreamdeer:

So..the second movie is tentatively expected to release around December, 2012? How fitting! Multiple groups around the globe (most famously the Mayan calendar) have predicted that the world will end that very month, or at least experience such interesting cataclysms as to signal the end of the world as we know it. But hey, if I get to see the final Tolkien movie before it all goes kablooey, I’ll be satisfied. Wouldn’t that be a nice way to close things down?

Join the discussion! [Click Here]

The Hobbit Movie LogoAre you dying to know how to get cast as an extra in the Hobbit films or what LOTR actors, if any, will be returning? Perhaps you lie awake at night wondering how Guillermo Del Toro will bring Smaug to life on the big screen or whether the Tolkien vs. New Line lawsuit will delay or stop the films. These are but a few of the most frequently asked questions that come into TORn every day. So, as part of our continuing efforts to keep our readers up-to-date on all things Hobbit-related, we’ve compiled answers to your most frequently asked questions on one easy-to-access page on the site. It also includes useful links to key interviews, news stories, posts by GDT and more.

You can find the Hobbit Movie FAQ here, plus it’s now easily accessible via a permanent link in the menu on the left side of the screen under the heading “The Hobbit.” Be sure to check it often for updates during these dynamic and exciting times leading up to the next movies, and send any ideas or updates you have to spymaster@theonering.net!

Danny DiVitoCan’t quite visualize that? Believe it or not, that’s one of the many casting rumors that was sent to TORn in June of 1999, reported in the Sunday Star Times no less. Now that the casting rumor mill has started anew for The Hobbit and ‘F2,’ message board member diedye thought it would be fun to re-visit some of the old news reported on TORn in times past. Do you remember the first photos of Sam and Frodo on Mt. Doom from June of 2000? Did you know Bruce Willis was rumored to have petitioned PJ for a part in LOTR? With a few items sprinkled in from Tolkien’s letters and other sources, this makes for a fun trip down memory lane. Stay tuned for regular installments!
Continue reading “TORn Flashback June 9-14: Keanu Reeves or Danny DiVito as Gandalf?”

James McAvoy

Forummer LordotRings93 has shared this note in the forums, from MTV Movie Blog, which have followed The Hobbit process closely:

“I’m a huge fan of the Tolkien saga, everything to do with Middle-earth,” he reiterated this weekend to MTV News. “But no there’s no truth in the fact that they’ve approached me yet.”

But that won’t stop McAvoy from playing along with our readers. So who would he cast in the role made famous by Ian Holm?

“Ian Holm!” McAvoy proclaimed as if the answer was self-evident. “I don’t know if he’d be able to go back, but he SHOULD do it.”

He said he hadn’t been approached yet. Could he be later? Either way, we will find about casting decisions straight from Guillermo del Toro, as he, himself told us a couple weeks ago. [MTV Movie Blog]

New Zealand Flag MIDDLE EARTH and the Hobbits recast New Zealand as a nature lover’s paradise and helped propel the islands’ share of global tourism to record levels. Now Australia’s tourism leaders are turning to another celluloid extravaganza, the movie Australia , to attract a new wave of international visitors keen to experience the real thing. Tourism chiefs are to unveil a deal between the film’s distributor, 20th Century Fox, its director, Baz Luhrmann and the federal tourism body, Tourism Australia, at a tourism conference in Perth today. High hopes the Hobbit effect will hit home