James Cameron and Peter Jackson are among 23 filmmakers who joined cinema owners in protesting plans by studios to offer 48-hour rentals through video-on-demand on DirecTV just two months after movies open in theaters.
Making movies available for home viewing early may “irrevocably harm the financial model of our film industry,” the filmmakers said in a letter distributed today by the National Association of Theatre Owners.
Cinema owners and filmmakers are challenging a plan by four studios to release some films for rental starting tomorrow through El Segundo, California-based DirecTV, the largest satellite-TV operator, for $29.99. Early release to home video will cost the industry millions of dollars in ticket sales and force some theaters to close, according to the letter.
“What sells for $30-a-viewing today could be blown out for $9.99 within a few years,” the authors wrote. “We ask that our studio partners do not rashly undermine the current — and successful — system of releasing films.” More..
What would you get if you compressed every single frame of The Fellowship of the Ring into a single image? Well, thanks to Ringer Moviebarcodefan, we now know…
Take a look at this awesome site – this guy compressed every frame of Lord of the Rings into a single image. You can see the amazing work Peter Jackson did with LOTR in a beautiful coloured “barcode“. The Shire, Rivendell, The Pass of Caradhras, …
Check out the full res of this image and other popular movie barcodes at their website! [Moviebarcodes]
As promised not but two days ago, Peter Jackson’s very first video from the sets of The Hobbit is now up on his Facebook page.
Needless to say, our message boards have exploded with excitement, awe, wonderment, and questions that need answering. Believe us when we say this, you don’t want to miss out on the discussion of this much-anticipated video. Join in!
Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian has an interesting article today about what the future holds now that Peter Jackson is filming in 48fps:
The cinema, said Jean-Luc Godard, is truth, 24 times per second. That’s not truthful enough for some people. This week, Peter Jacksonannounced that he is shooting his new version of The Hobbit at 48 frames per second, a massively more expensive process that captures movement and detail with far greater accuracy. In his blog, Jackson says that we have tolerated the sprockety old 24fps speed for far too long, and this is like “the moment when vinyl records were supplanted by digital CDs”. Jackson calls for cinemas worldwide to switch over to 48fps projection speeds to show his Hobbit, which is of course in 3D; he dismisses “purists” unhappy at the consequent textural loss of blur and strobing – comparable, perhaps, to art historians who lament the cleaning of an Old Master canvas, which removes its grainy, characterful darkness.
Are we witnessing that most unreliable phenomenon: the game-changer?
[Read More] (Thanks to Ringer Irfon and QuackingTroll for the tip!)
In a recent interview with the LA Times, Saiorse Ronan, who is rumored to play the part of ‘Itaril’ in the Hobbit films, confirmed that it was still only a rumor with this interesting tidbit:
“Pete is adding a lot of characters in the film adaption,” she said. “Hopefully they have a part for me.”
A few days later, she said in an interview with Total Film that they wanted her to be in The Hobbit, though as whom remains to be seen.
We already know that PJ is bringing a lot of characters from The Lord of the Rings to The Hobbit films, including some who were only briefly mentioned in the book and were not mentioned in the LOTR films at all (such as Radagast and Drogo). How many characters, however, has he invented solely for the films? Is this rumored Itaril a special case, or are there more to come?
What roles could be played by characters created for the films? (Hobbit Book Spoilers ahead!)
