Last week, the artisans at Weta announced 19 amazing items for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, including the Key to Erebor, Thorin’s Map, Thorin Oakenshield statue, Gandalf The Grey statue, Bilbo Baggins statue, Art Prints, Map replicas, and much more. All of the items are up for Pre-Order now with several of them being in-stock ready to arrive to your collection. To celebrate the arrival of these great items, TheOneRing.net and Weta teamed up to give away two of them: Thorin’s Map and the Key to Erebor. Both contests were highly popular with entries hitting the 500 mark for each. It was obvious by all these emails that fans wanted to get one of these amazing collectibles shipped and on the way to their house. We’re happy to announce that the winner of Thorin’s Map is C. Bull of Australia and the winner of the Key to Erebor is B. Sprinkle of Virgina. Congratulations to you both!
Category: Production
According to Peter Green, at this website, a song by New Zealand musician Neil Finn will be used during the end credits of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Finn has recorded extensively, as a solo artist and also with bands such as Split Enz and Pajama Club; he is perhaps best known as lead singer and guitarist with Crowded House. We don’t yet know anything more about this song, but will update as soon as we do! Given that all three end credit songs for the Lord of the Rings movies were performed by women, it will be exciting to hear a male voice at the end of the first Hobbit movie. The soundtracks for Fellowship of the Ring and Return of the King were released at the end of November in their respective years, but the Two Towers soundtrack didn’t come out until 10th December 2002; let’s hope we get an end of November release date for the Unexpected Journey soundtrack!
Thanks to Peter and to ringer spy Dennis for the heads up!
The Warner Bros. legal team has shut down the development of a free Lord of the Rings mod for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
The all-volunteer, unpaid team of game enthusiasts behind the mod say they repeatedly attempted to negotiate a compromise that would allow them to proceed in some form, but Warner Bros. rebuffed all of their proposals. Warner Bros. first requested that the 40-person-strong development team cease all work on the project, called MERP (Middle-earth Roleplaying Project), in July.
“Modding” is a term used to describe when users unofficially adapt or alter a game beyond its original specifications. Modders will often create new characters, character skins, plotlines and dialogue, music or even entirely new worlds for their favourite games.
Mod developer Alasdair Hurst believes MERP’s main problem could be that people need to buy Skyrim first.
“But the mod itself will be available to all the fans for free.” Continue reading “Warner Bros. shut down free Skyrim LoTR mod”
Today marks the day the New Zealand Post, in an exclusive arrangement with Warner Bros. Consumer Products, Warner Bros. Pictures, and the filmmakers, releases commemorative stamps and coins for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
New Zealand Post’s spokesman for stamps and coins Simon Allison says:
We’re the only country in the world with the rights to produce these highly collectable coins, featuring iconic characters from what is sure to become a classic series of films.
The items announced today are appropriate mementoes of the film, and fit in with the mythology of Middle-earth – New Zealand. We’re committed to honouring the legacy of Sir Peter’s films, by creating stamps and coins of the highest quality.
Hit the break for hi-res pictures of the stamps and coins, and the world exclusive press release for the same, courtesy of our friend Emma over at New Zealand Post.
As part of our World Wide Celebration of Hobbit week we, and the folks at Weta Workshop, teamed up to give away one of their amazing Sunrise Upon Edoras Art Print (I just received mine and it is AWESOME). After nearly 500 entries we’re pleased to announce the winner…Congrats to S. Jones of Seattle, Washington. Weta will be sending this masterpiece directly to your door. Please don’t forget to support our contest sponsor Weta Workshop! [Weta Workshop]
October madness has landed and Weta Workshop has unleashed the first wave of collectibles for The Hobbit: An Unexpectd Journey. Weta released 19 items today with several of them being in-stock so that collectors can start the path to a hoard of their own Dragon’s gold. A few of the things you can order right now are: Art Of The Hobbit (Special Edition) Bilbo Baggins statue, Gandalf The Grey statue (change out hat), Thorin Oakenshield statue, two versions of Thorin’s Map, The Hobbit Art Print, The Key To Erebor and more. Some of these items will go fast so make sure you jump on them now before they vanish! Full List of items released today and pictures after the break:
THEONERING.net CONTEST: Thanks to our great friends at Weta Workshop, we’ll be giving away two separate items to two lucky fans of Middle-Earth: The Key to Erebor and Thorin’s Map Parchment Art Print. Starting today through next Saturday, October 8th, we’ll be taking entries sent to Elessar@theonering.net with the subject line Key to Erebor Contest for the Key, and Thorin’s Map Contest if you would like to win the map. Please send separate emails for each contest. One entry per contest per person please. In the body of your email, please tell us your name, email contact and shipping information. The contest is open to fans of all ages worldwide. The winner will be chosen at random – one winner per item. Good luck!