MSN published a ‘Where are they now?‘ feature today outlining the main roles from The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. As the name implies, the article highlights a few of the actors and, wait for it, what they are doing now! Ringer Malintatherian, who sent us the link, observed that MSN accidentally used a picture of Merry when writing of Billy Boyd. Hobbit are hard to distinguish sometimes! Check out the full article at MSN.com. [Read On]

What would you get if you compressed every single frame of The Fellowship of the Ring into a single image? Well, thanks to Ringer Moviebarcodefan, we now know…

Take a look at this awesome site – this guy compressed every frame of Lord of the Rings into a single image. You can see the amazing work Peter Jackson did with LOTR in a beautiful coloured “barcode“. The Shire, Rivendell, The Pass of Caradhras, …

Check out the full res of this image and other popular movie barcodes at their website! [Moviebarcodes]

Thanks to Alientraveller for this one: Game of Thrones, HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s first book in his bestselling series, premieres April 17. From Ladyhawke to Raiders of the Lost Ark to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Martin curates his list of all-time favorites…Fans of the books should also read “10 Secrets of HBO’s Game of Thrones,” to find out about casting direwolves, forging the Iron Throne, creating the Dothraki language, and many other behind-the-scenes details.

1. Fellowship of the Ring/ The Two Towers/ Return of the King: “I suppose I could list these as my Top 3, but they are really one long movie (very long if you watch the extended cuts with their extra footage, which are my preferred versions) just as the Tolkien “trilogy” was actually one long novel sliced into three parts by publisher fiat…” More..

Eddard StarkHBO is airing a fantasy series in two weeks staring LOTR alumn Sean Bean. Just as in 2000, when New Line Cinema put high-quality fantasy in the cinema, viewed then as an expensive risk, the subscription channel is adapting a fantasy novel, George R.R. Martin’s “A Game of Thrones,” for television. Bean, Boromir in Tolkien’s “Fellowship of the Ring,” is front and center here as the series’ most recognizable face playing Eddard Stark, one of the powerful players in a land full of political intrigue. Sunday night HBO started the two-week countdown before the shows airs each Sunday for 10 weeks. You can watch a 14-minute preview now but younger and sensitive viewers should be warned, there are graphic depictions of dead bodies, a beheading and the stuff of nightmares if you follow this link. (TORn recently ran a story comparing the LOTR films and the television series.)

Gimli may not be in The Hobbit, but we all know his father, Gloin, will be playing a big part! Continuing their series of The Lord of the Rings statues, Sideshow Collectibles has just starting taking pre-orders for both the exclusive and regular editions of Gimli, son of Gloin. The exclusive edition is limited to 500 pieces and features an additional ‘felled Orc’ base at no extra cost over the regular. The exclusive is only available for purchase through the SideshowCollectibles.com website. And from what we can tell, they still have quite a few other The Lord of the Rings items available to ship today, including the Aragorn as Strider Exclusive statue!  [Pre-Order Exclusive] [Regular Edition] [LOTR Items]

Troika writes: Just a heads up that the St.Louis Symphony Orchestra will be performing the score to Fellowship of the Ring live to the film this coming April 1st, 2nd & 3rd. The very exciting news is that numerous original props from the Trilogy (over 30 items, from Frodo’s sword Sting to a complete Ringwraith costume, pretty much stuff from every major character) will be on display as well.

I’ve been collecting original props from the films since 2002 and as far as I know, this is the only collection of it’s kind outside of the Wingnut/Weta Archive. This will be the first, and most likely only time the collection will be on display. More information on the show and tickets can be found here.