Pungolo writes: Hey Xoanon! Today I had a good chat with Mr. Alan Lee, who was presenting his new book here in Milan! We spoke mainly about Kong, but he said some interesting things about LOTR too (even if we are going to publish a report of a conference he gave after our interview, in which he showed a lot of interesting material – we’ll send you the photos for TORN). [More]
Category: LotR Movies
Andy “Gollum” Serkis got a little too close to the apes to channel King Kong. King Kong’s return, 72 years after his introduction in the original classic, is the year’s best more-than-mortal comeback since Batman Begins. And the giant ape owes it to his alter ego, Andy Serkis. Serkis can do it all, from balding mystical runt to huge, hairy anthropoid in a blink of the camera’s eye. He was the heart and soul of creepy Gollum, the defrocked hobbit in The Lord of the Rings. Now he’s Hollywood’s go-to guy for iconic gorillas in our midst. [More]
It’s a snowbound land, full of mythical creatures, that is entered through the back of a wardrobe. But for New Zealand, Narnia is a lot more than just the setting for a new Hollywood movie. It’s the chance to generate another big series of movies to follow the phenomenon that was The Lord of the Rings. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, based on a classic children’s novel by C. S. Lewis, has been made by the director Andrew Adamson (who also made Shrek and Shrek 2) on a reported budget of $US150 million ($200 million). It centres on four children who accidently enter Narnia then join a battle between an evil witch and a god-like lion. [More]
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa has bumped a New Zealand art exhibition aside to make way for a money-spinning Lord of the Rings repeat, in a deal secured with a highly unusual payment. Filmmaker and aviation enthusiast Peter Jackson agreed to a second six-month exhibition on the condition the museum located and bought for him a vintage Sopwith Camel airplane engine. Te Papa spokesman Peter Brewer said a deal on an engine found somewhere in the northern hemisphere should be settled by Christmas. The engine cost “a fraction of the amount” the museum would otherwise have had to pay Jackson in licensing fees, he said. It is understood Te Papa paid trilogy backers New Line Cinemas up to $500,000 for the first Rings’ exhibition in 2003. The studio had since signed over the licensing rights to Jackson. [More]
Annie writes: There is a Peter Jackson season at the NFT (National Film Theatre) in London which started on the 5th December and runs until 30th December. It goes without saying that they are showing all of the Lord of the Rings films. [More]