Actor Andy Serkis was languishing in showbiz obscurity until he landed the role of Gollum in Lord of the Rings. He provided the character’s voice and movements but only briefly appeared on screen himself. He repeated his CGI antics as the great big monkey in King Kong, out on DVD now. [More]
Category: Peter Jackson
Hollywood director and Kiwi multi-millionaire Peter Jackson is adding another flourish to his Wairarapa mansion – his own railway track. The region’s most famous local bought the $5 million, 30ha property with his partner, Fran Walsh, seven years ago and has been transforming it into a fairytale property, with castle-like buildings and ornamental lake. Train enthusiast Ian Welch, of Mainline Steam Trust, told the Sunday Star-Times Jackson had bought a replica of a 1900s steam train from Canada. Welch supported Jackson’s venture and the train was “beautiful… a gorgeous replica of an early period of steam. It’s very American, like a cowboy train”. [More]
He had the biggest role in the movies last year, but Andy Serkis doesn’t have to worry about fans and paparazzi. Serkis, as you well know, created the title character in King Kong, Peter Jackson’s giant movie. Before that, Serkis — wearing a motion-capture suit, as he did for Kong — played and voiced Gollum, the twisted creature in Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. But Serkis isn’t entirely unrecognizable. “It’s funny — with Gollum and now Kong, I always thought that I’d be completely anonymous,” says the 41-year-old British actor, “but because of DVDs and behind-the-scenes stuff and Kong Diaries, yeah, people do recognize me, not to an unhealthy extent. I have a certain amount of anonymity, and certainly professionally I’m not typecast. Well, it’s not that you can be typecast, because there aren’t that many roles for 25-foot gorillas.” [More]
NEW YORK (AP) — The box-office performance of Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” wasn’t as chest-thumping as many expected. But to be fair, $217 million isn’t terrible, nor was the $520 million worldwide take. Moreover, the film was well received by critics, nominated for four Oscars and won three: visual effects, sound and sound editing. Those three aspects of filmmaking are represented on the new two-disc special edition DVD coming out Tuesday (a single disc version also is available). The features include post-production diaries that bookend the previously released production diaries of “Kong.” They are an unusual inside look on the minutiae that goes into even the biggest of movies. [More]
Set in the 1930s, this is the story of a young and beautiful actress Ann Darrow from the world of vaudeville who finds herself lost in depression-era New York and her luck changes when she meets an over-ambitious filmmaker Carl Denham who brings her on an exploratory expedition to a remote island where she finds compassion and the true meaning of humanity with an ape Kong. The beauty and the beast finally meet their fate back in the city of New York where the filmmaker takes and displays the ape in quest of his fame by commercial exploitation which ultimately leads to catastrophe for everyone including a playwright Jack Driscoll who falls in love with Ann and plays an unlikely hero by trying to save her from Kong and her destiny. [Order on Amazon]
Malcolm writes: There’s an interview with Peter Jackson over at Dark Horizons (darkhorizons.com) in which he discusses the King Kong DVD, a possible future edition to be released later this year, and plans for an LOTR box set on an HD format. [More]