Since 2007, the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas has hosted a marathon screening of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, and on January 9th, 2020 they’ll be doing it again! Join me, staffer deej, and a couple hundred other Tolkien fans as we watch the Extended Editions (are there any other?) and feast on 7 courses of delicious food and drink (served at Hobbit meal times, of course). Alamo are also partnering with the charity Comicbooks for Kids, who provide comic books to kids in hospitals and cancer centers. I’ll have some OneRing.net goodies to hand out, too! You can get ticket prices and see the AMAZING menu they have whipped up here.
Tickets go on sale Monday, December 9th; sign up on the Alamo Facebook and Twitter pages for sale times and additional information.
Looking for that perfect holiday gift for your favorite fan of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movies? Look no further! Monday, December 16 could be your lucky day. That’s the day Julien’s Auctions, known for their auctions packed with Hollywood collectibles, will be auctioning off one of the original tobacco pipes used by Sir Ian Holm in his role as Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring! The pipe will come fully documented for authenticity by both Peter Jackson and Animation Designer and Supervisor, Randall William Cook.
According to the Julien’s Auctions website: Jackson personally gifted this production artifact to animation supervisor Randall William Cook in celebration of Cook’s 50th birthday during the making of the film. Included with the prop is the original birthday card from Jackson to Cook when the gift was presented to Cook on his birthday as well as a letter of authenticity from Cook.
What lessons can Amazon learn from the team that’s been there & back again? Let’s find out! Join TORn Tuesday hosts Cliff Broadway and Justin Sewell for an epic All-Star LOTR panel tomorrow! Joining us will be Mark Ordesky (Executive Producer), Sean Astin (Actor – Sam Gamgee), Rick Porras (Co-producer), Jim Rygiel (Visual Effects Supervisor), Michael Pellerin (Producer, multiple LOTR & Hobbit documentaries), Keith Stern (Ian McKellen’s Digital Manager), and Sala Baker (Actor – Sauron), as we all relive memories of filming LORD OF THE RINGS. What were those early days on set like? Did producers follow the fan discussion online? What made this effort so special? Get your deep knowledge questions ready for this multi-Oscar winning team and join the Live chat tomorrow 5pm PT. There are three options to watch the live stream, each of which let you comment and ask questions of your own:
Collider announced earlier today that 23 year-old British actor Maxim Baldry “has landed a significant role” in the upcoming Amazon Middle-earth TV series. Baldry is perhaps best known so far for his role in the 2019 BBC/HBO joint production series Years and Years. According to Collider: “Character details are being kept under wraps along with plot details.” While that doesn’t give us a lot to go on, ok almost nothing to go on, we do know that the new series is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, which narrows down, if only slightly, what “significant role” might imply.
Even within Tolkien’s own books, anniversaries are treated as special occasions. A chance for the characters to reflect upon the past that shaped them as they continue moving forward into the future. But for us Lord of the Rings fans, this October 11 (or October 10, if you’re in the Western world) is an anniversary of special magnificence. It was October 11, 1999 in New Zealand when principal photography commenced on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies, with the main shoot encompassing The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. Back at a time when the internet had no Facebook, Twitter, or Wikipedia, back when VHS tapes were the preferred way to watch home movies, and when Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin were world leaders, an 18-year-old Elijah Wood and his castmates gathered together to begin shooting three films that most of the non-Tolkien fans of the time gave little regard to.
Filmed on October 11, 1999
It’s interesting to look back at the schedule from those days because it wasn’t dictated by story or film order but by what locations were ready, who was available, and what the weather was likely to be like. In fact, while filming began with the four hobbit actors hiding from a black rider on the Wooded Road and ended 437 days later on the set of Minas Tirith, the order of what was filmed in between was more of a hodgepodge. (I’m always amused when people claim that the Grey Havens’s farewell sequence carries its emotional weight because of how much the actors bonded over the course of the project. In fact, it was shot rather early in the go, and when Ian McKellen was later asked how he kept from weeping in the scene, he replied, “This was only the second scene I filmed for the trilogy. I scarcely knew Frodo from Merry and adopted the safest course of expressing very little as I said goodbye to them.”)
“You with the dark hair, it is time to go.”
Of course, the end of principal photography itself wasn’t really the end. Pickup shots would continue for The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King, with the latter even having some pickup shots filmed after its theatrical release to help fill out the extended edition. Peter Jackson, after shooting the final final footage for the trilogy, a shot of a couple of skulls rolling at the Paths of the Dead, commented that it was especially bizarre to still be shooting The Return of the King in 2004 after the film had won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
By setting aside the pickup shots, weather cover days, and various bits and pieces shot by some hard-working unit while most of the actors were busy elsewhere, here’s the general schedule The Lord of the Rings followed:
1999
October
(Filming begins with Hobbit leads) The Wooded Road Farmer Maggot’s Field Buckleberry Ferry Bree Exterior (Viggo Mortensen arrives) Weathertop Isengard Deforestation
November
(Sean Bean Arrives) Anduin River Amon Hen Battle
December
Boromir’s Death Frodo’s escape from Boromir Ford of Bruinen Prancing Pony Interior Exiting Moria Approach to Lothlorien
2000
January
(Ian McKellen arrives) Hobbiton Exteriors The Grey Havens Edoras Exteriors
February
(Ian Holm arrives) Bag End Interior Orthanc Interior Helm’s Deep
March
Helm’s Deep Continues Gandalf at Isengard Rivendell Exteriors
April
Helm’s Deep Continues Last Alliance (Prologue) Aragorn and Company at the Black Gate Caves of Orthanc Frodo and Sam in Mordor
May
Helm’s Deep Concludes Frodo and Sam in Mordor Concludes Frodo and Sam at the Black Gate Moria Interior Rivendell Interior
June
Paths of the Dead Interior (Cate Blanchett arrives) Lothlorien
July
Orthanc Exteriors Cirith Ungol
August
Anduin River Flooded Isengard
September
Breaking of the Fellowship Caradhas Voice of Saruman
October
Edoras Interior Battle of the Pelennor Fields
November
Fangorn Forest
December
Fangorn Forest Concludes Moria Gate Minas Tirith
Special thanks to J.W. Braun, the author of The Lord of the Films. You can visit his website at www.jwbraun.com.
If you haven’t already, make sure to mark your calendars for this Thursday, October 10th. That’s the day we can finally order the beautiful Minas Morgul environment we saw at Comic-Con this past July. Unlike previous items, this will have a unique way to determine the edition size. When orders open on Thursday they will begin calculating the edition size, and when orders close on the 23rd of this month they will finalize the number. So we, the fans, will determine just where this ends up; and it also allows us to show bad we want this piece. So mark your calendar now.
Here is what time Minas Morgul will go up based on your location:
· 12.30 p.m, October 10 – 12.30 p.m, October 23 (PDT)
· 9.30 p.m, October 10 – 9.30 p.m, October 23 (CET)
· 8.30 a.m, October 11 – 8.30 a.m, October 24 (NZT)
