Welcome to 2011 and TheOneRing.net. We have been around for a while now but this is an exceptionally exciting time heading into a year that will finally see the production of ‘The Hobbit’ start in earnest.
2010 was pretty eventful in dramatic and difficult ways. With lots of J.R.R. Tolkien books on our shelves along with our Middle-earth inspired movies, it will be fun to follow the production again as Peter Jackson, Weta and Warner Bros. move a reportedly wonderful two-part scrip from the page into digital 3D (also available in 2D!) The year ahead will bring us plenty of news, ideas, rumors and fun.
While many media outlets world wide will jump on the Hobbit news-reporting bandwagon, we will stay right here in our well-worn and comfortable seats and enjoy the ride.
We look forward to the experience along with you, dear reader. As always, TORn remains not-for-profit and forged by and for fans of J.R.R. Tolkien so thank you all for your past and future contributions and support. This is going to be fun!
Author JW Braun has sent along his latest vlog book review. This, along with several other video blogs from other artists, web personalities and others will makeup a new ‘TORN TV’ feature we are working on, more on that soon. In the meantime check our JW’s book review of ‘Peter Jackson: A Film-Maker’s Journey’ by Brian Sibley
TheOneRing.net staffer and regular contributor Treebeard was lucky enough to have the chance to chat with Graham McTavish (Dwalin) about his role in The Hobbit.
Treebeard (T.B.) I am here with Graham McTavish, interviewing him for TheOneRing.net about his upcoming role as a Dwalin in The Hobbit. Hi Graham!
Graham McTavish (G.M.) Hello.
T.B. Did you have any interest in the works of Tolkien before you auditioned for The Hobbit?
G.M. Yes. I’d read “The Lord of the Rings” probably when I was about eighteen, all three straight through, and like most teenagers that encountered the books for the first time, it allowed me to disappear into a whole different world that I always looked forward to going back to while I was reading it. I hadn’t read “The Hobbit,” but I did, very quickly, when I was asked! [laughs] It’s very interesting for me the difference between the two books, I suppose, being that “The Hobbit” seems to me a much more straightforward, linear adventure story. I’ve be interested to find out, when I’ve told people that I’m doing this, a lot of them prefer “The Hobbit”, in some ways. And, also it seems to be amongst every man I’ve met, the first book they ever read. Continue reading “TORN Exclusive: Graham ‘Dwalin’ McTavish Interview”
ComingSoon.net has snagged an exclusive with actor Ron Perlman in which he states he’s not in The Hobbit.
“I’m not doing [it],” Perlman said, adding with a laugh, “I think maybe that’s a scoop for you.”
With not much else to go by, fans of Ron Perlman probably needn’t despair, as just because he isn’t in it yet doesn’t mean he won’t be down the line. Some might recall former Hobbit director Guillermo del Toro mentioning he had a role in mind for Perlman, but with Peter Jackson taking over the directorial reins of the two films, only time will tell whether GDT’s choice will still hold.
Until then, all we can do is speculate. There’s a healthy discussion concerning GDT’s and PJ’s casting choices going on over at our message boards right now. Feel free to join in.
A casting agent for Wellington producer Sir Peter Jackson’s planned film adaptations of The Hobbit has been dismissed after placing newspaper advertisements seeking extras with “light skin tones”. A spokesman for Wingnut Films, Sir Peter’s production company, told Agence France-Presse the unnamed agent was not directed by the company to make such restrictions. “No such instructions were given,” the spokesman said. “The crew member in question took it upon themselves to do that and it’s not something we instructed or condoned”. More..
From engadget.com: We’re still slightly bummed that Peter Jackson never made Halo, but this should patch things up a tad — the Lord of the Rings director will film The Hobbit in 3D entirely on thirty hand-machined RED EPIC cameras, starting early next year. That’s the news straight from RED founder Jim Jannard, but that’s not all, as a limited number of pre-production EPIC packages will be available to early adopters as well. $58,000 buys your deep-pocketed budding director a machined EPIC-M body, titanium PL mount, Bomb EVF and 5-inch touchscreen LCD, a REDmote, a four-pack of batteries, a charger and a solid state storage module with a four-pack of 128GB SSDs. Jannard expects to hand-assemble that first batch of 5K imagers in December or January, start the real assembly lines a month after that, and hopefully have widespread availability by NAB in April, though he’s not making any promises there. That’s how RED rolls. More..
Xoanon here, this is not the Peter’s first foray into Red cameras, Peter used one a few years back to shoot some plane footage at an air show. Meanwhile his post production house ‘Park Road Post’ has experience withe the Red series of cameras.
Dear reader – 
TheOneRing.net staffer and regular contributor Treebeard was lucky enough to have the chance to chat with Graham McTavish (Dwalin) about his role in The Hobbit.
