Our sources are telling us that the always reliable (and great) film-on-disc website www.digitalbits.com is correct its Lord of The Rings Blu-ray news. Bill Hunt released the info in his column today. We had not heard a final decision had been reached but Hunt knows his stuff and can be trusted. This is both good and bad.
The good: Expect the extended-edition version of all three LOTR films in 2011. Warner will attempt to do these in (obviously) extremely high quality transfers that will fix minor items here and there and still likely put one movie on two discs rather than cram data to one disc and let quality suffer. Continue reading “LOTR Extended Blu-ray coming in 2011”
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From MTV: Why did it take the man behind Gandalf so long to commit officially to “The Hobbit”? In a surprisingly candid post on his website, Ian McKellen opened up on Wednesday (January 12) about behind-the-scenes developments and his own ambivalence surrounding the two-part project.
“Could I let Gandalf go? Would anyone else care if I did?” he wrote, going on to cite the example of the “Harry Potter” franchise. “Elsewhere, does anyone care that Michael Gambon was not the first to play Dumbledore?”
The issue all along was not whether he still feels creatively energized by Gandalf — “I long to do it,” McKellen told us of the role back in November of 2009. Rather, the sticking point was simply that the production faced delay after delay and, as the 71-year-old McKellen put it, “All I had to decide was what to do with the time that is given me.”
First, producer Peter Jackson and director Guillermo del Toro struggled to get the production off the ground as MGM faced severe financial difficulties, and then a planned date to begin shooting early last year came and went. Del Toro departed the project, Jackson stepped in to direct and the production faced a dustup with New Zealand’s trade union. The prospect of shooting outside that country bubbled up. More..
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Wired: These photos show the kind of fine dining that keeps a hobbit happy.
The eight courses — served during traditional hobbit meal times like breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner and supper — made for quite a spread this past weekend at the annual screening of The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas.
“Each year we must gather to recount the epic quest of the hobbit Frodo and his merry band of dwarfs, wizards, elves and Viggo’s,” the cinema said in a press release. “We snuggle up together and watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy — nearly 12 hours — and get loaded to the gills with food, beer and wine all inspired by Tolkien’s Middle-earth.” More..
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This weekend there will be a small and tall casting session in Christchurch, New Zealand. Thanks to the local ringers who sent this info in!
The ad in the local paper reads:
The Hobbit
Official Short/Tall Casting Call
Due to the requirements of certain characters to be portrayed in the films, the production is currently looking for men and women of very specific heights for full time and casual work. Please note this is NOT an Extras Casting Call. Continue reading “Tall & Small Casting in Christchurch”
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Sir Peter Jackson’s talent scouts will visit Dunedin to fill a tall order for a long list of short people to work on his next big movie. Production company Wingnut Films is looking for short and tall people to play scale doubles for the speaking cast of The Hobbit.
It has announced a casting call for the Edgar Centre on Sunday and yesterday warned aspiring actors who were either too short or too tall not to apply. Scouts would only consider men aged 17-55 who are between 128cm and 158cm tall, or taller than 210cm, and women between 128cm and 153cm tall. Confirming the details, a Wingnut spokesman said scale doubles would appear in some wide shots, or with other actors when those actors needed to be made to look taller or shorter, he said. More..
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The guys over at IGN managed to catch up with Elijah Wood and ask him a few questions about his recent casting announcement as Frodo Baggins in the upcoming Hobbit films. Here’s what he had to say:
We thought we were finished and the character doesn’t even exist in The Hobbit, so it was not even a pipe dream to imagine the possibility would be there for me to reprise the role of Frodo. But they’ve come up with something that I think is kind of interesting and I think very fitting that doesn’t necessarily infringe upon the integrity of the original novel. It’s great. I’m really excited.
Those [the Lord of the Rings] films marked a huge, massive experience in my life. It’s been 11 years, basically, since I went to New Zealand, so it’ll be a beautiful reunion and I’m just excited to go back and see everybody again.
Continue reading “Elijah Wood Speaks About “The Hobbit””
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