Last year, you may remember that Denny’s had a Hobbit menu in their restaurants during the holiday season. Today we can reveal that they’re doing it again this year, with an all new menu to be launched close to the film’s release; but the REALLY exciting news is the contest they’ll be launching tomorrow, to celebrate their renewed partnership with Warner Bros. and the Hobbit movies.
Denny’s will be hosting ‘The Search for Middle-earth’s Greatest Fan’. This competition will run throughout the month of October, and will be for an AMAZING prize: a two-night trip for two, including flights and hotel, to see the Desolation of Smaug world premiere! That’s right; if you’re deemed Middle-earth’s Greatest Fan, your reward will be that you will get to be in the audience at the world premiere screening of the next Hobbit movie, in December this year.
How do you win such an incredible prize? Full details of the competition will be coming tomorrow, when Denny’s make their official launch, but we can let you know that you’ll need to make a video explaining WHY you are the biggest fan. Tomorrow a website will go live, where you can upload such a video; we’ll let you know details, such as how long it should be and any other rules.
Denny’s will pick their favourite videos. They will then send those videos along to us here at TORn, where we will pick, from Denny’s favourites, what we think should be the top five. This top five will then be sent to Peter Jackson himself, who will choose his favourite to be the winner. Does it get any better than that? – Peter Jackson himself choosing the lucky winner who will get to join him at the premiere.
TORn is excited to be partnering with Denny’s on this. If you read this post last year, you’ll know that we were pleasantly surprised by the care and attention Denny’s gave to their Hobbit menu. This year they’ve been going even further, and have been consulting an ‘Advisory Board’, which includes Senior Staff at TORn, about some of their menu content and giveaway ideas. And of course, we here at TheOneRing.net always love bringing you, dear reader, the chance to win cool stuff – and what could be cooler than this contest?
Check back tomorrow morning – after you’ve watched the new Desolation of Smaug trailer – to get all the details on how you could win those tickets to see the world premiere! Smaug is coming!!
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Audience reaction to Hollywood’s first high frame rate movie, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was decidedly mixed, but frame rates—along with higher resolution, laser light, immersive sound and second screen experiences were very much on the minds of digital cinema leaders last week at the International Broadcasters Convention.
During the event, this community debated how to respond to the advancements taking place in home entertainment. “TV [technology] is moving faster,” admitted Disney’s vp production technology Howard Lukk during a panel discussion. “What keeps us up at night is how [cinema] stays the premium experience.” Continue reading “IBC wrap-up: ‘We would be fools if we didn’t learn from The Hobbit’”
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Welcome back to another in my occasional series about how I did the research for my book, The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood. (Click here to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.)
By the time I got to Wellington for my first research trip, in late September of 2003, principal photography was over. I didn’t expect that I would get to to on set and see Peter at work. In fact, Peter was in London supervising the editing and musical scoring for the first week and a half of my four-week visit. As I described in the second part of this series, I did get a delightful tour of the Stone Street Studios on my first day of active research. At that point, pickups of some orcs, destined to be inserted via CGI into battle scenes, were being shot against a big green-screen as they fired bows (the arrows to be added via computer). One of the cinematography crew members was directing this action. I was briefly in the studio again later and saw a little more filming of orc pickups. Those were my only on-set experiences.
Continue reading “Researching THE FRODO FRANCHISE: Part 5, Watching Peter Jackson Direct”
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Sir Peter Jackson has a new award to add to his trophy cabinet! The film director has just been honoured with New Zealand’s highest accolade, having been made an Additional Member of the Order of New Zealand, for services to the country. Sir Peter is the first member of the film industry to be made part of the Order; he joins a list which includes politicians, judges, sportsmen and even the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip!
Read the full story here. Everyone at TheOneRing.net sends many congratulations to Sir Peter on this significant honour!
(Photo, by Kevin Stent, shows Sir Peter with NZ Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae, at the investiture ceremony.)
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Via The Eagles of Manwe, which see all from afar, we are able to bring you this description of the face of Beorn. Our highly reputable source accidentally caught our favourite shape-shifter on location during principal photography in late 2011 at the Beorn’s Hall set near Paradise in Glenorchy.
With the usual spoiler warning, here’s the description: Continue reading “A description of the face of Beorn”
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Nothing official has been announced yet, but indications out of the Capital City are that things are progressing towards something Lord of the Rings fans have long desired, a museum dedicated to Middle-earth. For a more dynamic experience for visitors, it makes more sense for it to be a more general Film museum focused on all the films coming from Wingnut and WETA. That would allow for visitors to see new exhibits over time, but with a heavy focus on Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Te Papa had a very popular Lord of the Rings exhibit in 2002 and again in 2006, which turned out to be its most popular exhibit, so the market is there. Locations being looked at are somewhere along the waterfront. This would gives fans year round a second place to connect with their LOTR fandom alongside the WETA Cave, and something for them to see long after the final film is released. One of the biggest hurdles when this idea was first conceived was the licensing rights, but indications seem to imply that is less of an impediment right now.
For more details, read the article here.
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Last year, you may remember that Denny’s had a Hobbit menu in their restaurants during the holiday season. Today we can reveal that they’re doing it again this year, with an all new menu to be launched close to the film’s release; but the REALLY exciting news is the contest they’ll be launching tomorrow, to celebrate their renewed partnership with Warner Bros. and the Hobbit movies.
TORn is excited to be partnering with Denny’s on this. If you read this post last year, you’ll know that we were pleasantly surprised by the care and attention Denny’s gave to their Hobbit menu. This year they’ve been going even further, and have been consulting an ‘Advisory Board’, which includes Senior Staff at TORn, about some of their menu content and giveaway ideas. And of course, we here at TheOneRing.net always love bringing you, dear reader, the chance to win cool stuff – and what could be cooler than this contest?
