Nuradar writes: I just got an e-mail from the HarperCollins newsletter, called The Savvy Reader, about an upcoming live chat with Gillermo Del Toro taking place this Saturday at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. More..
Category: Production
Moahunter, our New Zealand message board member, has informed us that Sylvester McCoy was interviewed on TVNZ this morning and, among other things, was asked about his role as Radagast the Brown in The Hobbit.
Concerning his schedule, McCoy states he was down in Wellington, New Zealand earlier this year for about 8 weeks, shooting in the studio, and now he’s back there again for a couple of weeks for location shooting. In addition, he’ll be returning again in February 2012 for a couple of days.
The man couldn’t say much about his role though (apparently he’s been programmed by Weta to gag himself the moment his mouth utters the word “Hobbit”), though he could reveal that the main character he’s interacting with is Ian McKellen’s Gandalf the Grey.
The video can be accessed from this link.
Note it may not be available to people outside New Zealand, but a few of our board members, including myself, have been able to access it nonetheless.
When the notion of making performance-capture films based on Hergé‘s Tintin stories first came up, the plan was to make three films. Steven Spielberg would direct the first, Peter Jackson the next, and there was a theoretical third film mentioned here and there. But financing was problematic, and by the time Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin was working its way through post-production the film’s subtitle had been dropped and we weren’t hearing much about the second movie. We knew a screenwriter had been hired, but the future of the sequel was less than certain. More..
The latest episode of the BBC2’s “Planet Word” has Stephen Fry, cast in the role of the Master of Laketown, speaking with Peter Jackson about Tolkien’s use of languages in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Roads go ever, ever on, under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone, return at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen, and horror in halls of stone,
Look at last on meadows green, and trees and hills they long have known.
Stephen Fry’s recital of Tolkien’s poem sets the tone for his little discussion with PJ in a most apt setting – the Bag End set down in New Zealand, where filming for the upcoming Hobbit films is currently on in full swing.
Folks in the UK can watch the stream via bbc.co.uk, while those located internationally can catch a snippet over on YouTube (4:17 into the video).
A transcript is also up on our message boards courtesy of board member QuackingTroll.
Middle-Earth appears to be returning to the Wakatipu if construction in a remote valley is anything to go by. A three-storey wooden set and smaller structure are being built on private land beyond Glenorchy, 66km from Queenstown.
Security staff guarding the gate are turning away tourists and telling them the road does not give access to the nearby unsignposted Paradise estate. Continue reading “Hobbits Could Be Coming Soon!”
Film crews are now at Matamata’s Hobbiton film set as location shooting on Peter Jackson’s two-part fantasy epic The Hobbit begins in earnest – and the movie’s stars might not be far away.
One of two convoys laden with film gear arrived in Matamata’s Buckland Rd at the weekend, while the other headed to Queenstown from Sir Peter’s Miramar studios.
While production company 3 Foot 7 retains a tighter grip on information than Gollum on a certain ring, one nearby resident who declined to be named said the convoy started arriving on Saturday afternoon. Continue reading “Hobbit journey starts in Matamata”