According to Esquire.com: “It’s easy to dismiss the big, bushy-bearded director as just another grown-up fanboy with a brilliant knack for CGI.” What we want to know is: why would anyone dismiss him for that? That’s exactly why all us fanboys and girls love the guy! The 21st Century may be relatively new, but Del Toro making such a list is a very big deal. He joins a prestigious list that includes architects, diplomats, entrepreneurs and more. So, our congratulations go out to our favorite bushy-bearded fanboy. Thanks to diedye for the tip. Read More
Category: Production
Empire Magazine has published their 500 Greatest Movies list gauged in a poll of critics, filmmakers and the public. I’m still scouring the entire list to get you some individual actor’s achievements, however the breakdown for the LOTR trilogy is:
The Fellowship of the Ring: 24
The Two Towers: 54
The Return of the King: 34
Peter Jackson’s King Kong clocks in at 450, Empire writes: Most remakes are exercises in money-grubbing cynicism, but Peter Jackson’s King Kong is all about love – for a film, a monster, a style of cinema and a child’s instant bonding with a screen icon.
Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste clocks in at 416, Empie writes: Filmed during four years’ worth of weekends by Jackson and his mates, this cheerfully psychotic tale of human-eating aliens had its micro-budget funded in part by a New Zealand government grant.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth is 132: Guillermo del Toro fuses personal and commercial interests with a tale of the power of fairy tale, even against the grimmest of political settings: the Spanish Civil War.
You can see the entire list here.
From www.scifi.com: Saoirse Ronan, who stars as the doomed Susie Salmon in Peter Jackson’s upcoming adaptation of Alice Sebold’s novel The Lovely Bones, told reporters that the film’s events are heartbreaking, but that it’s ultimately a hopeful story. In the drama, Susie Salmon is a young girl who’s raped and murdered by a serial killer (Stanley Tucci). Following her death, Susie looks on from heaven as her parents (Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz) and her sister (Rose McIver) grieve and as her killer sets his sights on a next victim. Ronan Sees Hope In Dark Bones
ComingSoon.net reports on an interview with Del Toro about his approach to preparing for The Hobbit. Del Toro talks “feeding his brain” and gathering ideas “in order to conceptualize his own vision of Middle Earth unique from where Peter Jackson went in his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy…” Like Jackson, though, he believes in immersing himself directly in the history and sensibility that informed Tolkien’s experiences. Read More
John Howe writes: A new book coming out is always fun, generally as it means the editors involved are happy to coax me from my lair to go sign copies in some far-flung clime.*
FORGING DRAGONS (Paperback) Continue reading “John Howe’s Journal: FORGING DRAGONS”
After spending Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday week riddling, Doug Adams announced what the ‘other major release’ his book will be tied to: LOTR: THE RARITIES ARCHIVE, scheduled for release in the fourth quarter 2009. There will be substantially more rarities material released. Doug’s initial project was limited in terms of budget (buying rights from Warner Brothers). WBR owns all this so licensing rights is not an issue. Doug wrote:
“This means that CONSIDERABLY more music is now available for the project! You will see why this qualifies as something “major,” I promise. And as I’ve said, there is some incredible LOTR music that no one has ever heard.”
It can get a bit confusing even to those of us who keep abreast of the subject so I’m going to be very methodical and touch on what’s already been relesed, what we know will be released in the future and what is new as of September 26…
Continue reading “Warner Brothers to release a LOTR soundtrack “Rarities Archive””