Ringer Kookie sends us this link to The Bolton News where Ian McKellen was promoting a new project, but also spoke briefly on The Hobbit films. Everyone’s favorite Gandalf confirms recent reports that the planned start of filming is January 2011.

FILMING on The Hobbit, the long-awaited prequel to The Lord of the Rings, should start in the new year, according to former Bolton School boy Sir Ian McKellen.

“The aim is to start filming in January,” he said.

Learn more about his new project through the following link. [Read More]

TheOneRing.net is teaming up with Wolf Trap to giveaway two pairs of tickets for his weekend’s ‘The Lord of the Rings – Return of the King’ live Orchestra and Soloists event! If you are near the Washington DC area, you will not want to miss this performance, as you witness the stunning conclusion to The Lord of the Rings film trilogy with Howard Shore’s Oscar-winning score performed live on stage! The film is presented in HD on huge screens both in-house and on the lawn. How do you enter? All we ask is you tell us your favorite Return of the King scene in either a comment on this post, on our facebook thread about this giveaway, or as a response on our message boards. Act fast, as we will be choosing two (2) random winners on Thursday evening (9/10). Tickets for the event range from $25-$55 dollars, and can be purchased immediately at the Wolf Trap website. Check out the links for more details and good luck! [Wolf Trap]

Love can appear in unexpected places.

Elizabeth Henning and John Wolbers found theirs while creating a one hour mini-adaptation of author J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.”

Then they sealed it over cold beer and hot wings.

Henning, 26, and Wolbers, 28, are self-described “huge Tolkien dorks” and theater buffs.

[Read More]

Marcin Przybys at behance.net has produced an interesting experiment in Elvish typography, a kind of Helvetica-styled Tengwar for the modern-day elf.  Whether you like it or not (and whether or not you think that Tolkien would cringe at the notion of modernized elves producing sleek brochures with this typeface), it is certainly an interesting bit of art. [Read More]

Travellers who have moved on to a site in Hall Green in Birmingham said they were there to see the Pope.

Councillor Martin Mullaney said the families had moved on to a field next to Sarehole Mill, a childhood haunt of Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien.

He said they had told him they had no idea the event was ticket only.

Pope Benedict XVI is holding a special Mass in Cofton Park on Sunday 19 September, at the end of his four-day UK visit.

[Full Article]