Paul writes: Andrew O’Hehir, film critic on Salon.com, has run a series of four posts on why the LOTR films got so much critical acclaim at their launch, but appeared on none of the top-films-of-the-decade critics lists of people he knew.

In his words: “To be clear, I’m genuinely not pimping any particular ideology. I enjoyed the films immensely, and wrote a rave about “Return of the King” for Salon at the time. But I can barely remember them today, feel unsure whether I’ll ever watch them again, and still don’t regret leaving them off my own personal decade-end list. Then again, this isn’t about my dumb-ass list, or Stephanie Zacharek’s, or anybody else’s; this was about the fact that when I reached out to 60 or 70 filmmakers, critics and bloggers I know, in search of entries for our Films of the Decade series, not one of them suggested Jackson’s colossal trilogy as a personal favorite. So something’s going on here, and these responses are helping me figure it out a little.” 1 2 3 4

From eonline.com Looks like James Cameron is the King of Middle Earth, too. With $1.14 billion worldwide and counting, Avatar has now overtaken the $1.1 billion raked in by 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King to become the second-highest-grossing film in history.

In fact, Avatar is going so strong that what once seemed an out-of-this-world impossibility now seems within the realm of (virtual) reality. If the 20th Century Fox movie, which screens in both 2-D and 3-D formats, keeps up its current pace, it could catch the $1.8 billion in global ticket sales tallied by the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s own Titanic.

If that wasn’t enough (and it never is in Tinseltown), Fox’s FX cable network has reportedly paid upward of $25 million for the TV rights to Avatar, which will premiere in 2012. And that makes Cameron’s blue folk even more green.

Hollywood is preparing to re-release some past hits, including Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in 3-D following the record-breaking success of Avatar. Studio executives are drawing up schedules of popular films that will be “retro-fitted” with 3-D technology after the science fiction blockbuster, directed by James Cameron, last week became the second highest grossing movie of all time.

A 3-D version of Avatar has driven ticket sales to more than $1.14 billion (£700m) in just three weeks; only Titanic, Cameron’s 1997 epic, has made more money at the box office. Rival studios had been waiting to see if Avatar took the 3-D experience — albeit using special glasses — beyond the popularity of animated tales such Monsters vs Aliens. More..