John writes: I work at a Cineplex Odeon in Ontario.

We just got a few emails that let us know some of the details of the EE showings here in Canada. This is OFFICIAL, Cineplex Odeon’s Website is going to post it in the next day or two.

I only know the information for Toronto (I’m sorry for everyone else, I have a bad memory) but the EE of both FoTR and TTT will be only in 3 theatres in Greater Toronto Area, The Varsity (downtown), The Queensway, and The Grande (at Yonge-Shepperd). The “Trilogy Tuesday” back-to-back-to-back will only be at Varsity and at the Queensway!

If you watch the Trilogy, Return of the King will start at 10pm!

Tickets will go on sale for EACH film 30 days in advance. This means that you have to wait to buy tickets for the Trilogy tuesday, but it will only be a week to get FoTR:EE tickets!

Tickets for the Trilogy Tuesday are going to be $49.99 EACH!!! (Cdn$) Passes will not be accepted (as far as we know so far).

Hope everyone who wants the tickets will get them, but I’m going to be first in line!

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THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING SOUNDTRACK
FEATURES MUSIC FROM OSCAR WINNER HOWARD SHORE

AND A SPECIAL SONG BY GRAMMY AWARD WINNER ANNIE LENNOX

Also Highlights Acclaimed Soprano Renee Fleming

and Irish Flautist Sir James Galway

Soundtrack Debuts in Multiple Formats November 25

Los Angeles, CA, October 28, 2003 — The original soundtrack to The Lord of the Rings: The Return Of The King, the final installment in Peter Jackson’s epic The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, will be released on Reprise/WMG Soundtracks on November 25. The film opens nationwide on December 17 from New Line Cinema.

With music composed, orchestrated and conducted by Oscar and Grammy Award winner Howard Shore, who composed the scores to the two previous films in the Trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Return Of The King also features the new song “Into The West,” performed by Grammy Award winner Annie Lennox, and spotlights guest appearances by acclaimed soprano Renée Fleming, renowned Irish flautist Sir James Galway, and others.

“I have enjoyed working with Howard and Fran [Walsh] immensely,” remarked Annie Lennox. “It has been a fascinating experience to be a very small part of this vast jigsaw puzzle entitled The Lord of The Rings. The dedication and commitment to the project is awesome in every way. The song ‘Into The West’ is hauntingly beautiful and emotional, which befits the final scene of the trilogy”

The Lord of the Rings: The Return Of The King is being made available in four separate configurations. The CD format will feature 19 original selections from the film. A special limited edition package will contain the best-selling soundtracks from all three installments of The Lord Of The Rings, including The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001) and The Two Towers (2002), which have sold over 3 million units worldwide.

A deluxe CD DVD edition will contain The Return Of The King CD and an exclusive DVD that will feature bonus material including a The Lord of the Rings “supertrailer”; a The Return of the King photo gallery from the recording sessions; film stills; and poems and lyrics from The Return Of The King. It will also contain the special feature, “Use Well The Days: A Behind The Scenes Portrait of Howard Shore,” a 20-minute documentary focusing on Shore’s work in London during the recording of the film score by documentarian Elizabeth Cotnoir; as well as a second Anne Lennox track recorded especially for the DVD. Finally, an internet-only version of the CD DVD package will be available only to online buyers with additional The Lord Of The Rings extras. CD formats will contain a weblink to exclusive multi-media content from the films and liner notes written by Howard Shore and director Peter Jackson.

“Howard has always understood the emotional truth that lies at the center of this story,” remarks The Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson. “He has succeeded in drawing the audience into the very heart of its beauty, heroism and sadness. Howard’s music weaves seamlessly from image to image, scene to scene, film to film, binding score, characters and story into the rich tapestry of a far bigger and more complex picture. This has been his great strength as a composer, for Howard has shaped the score for The Lord of the Rings not over one, but three films, establishing and developing powerful themes, that much like Tolkien’s work itself, ‘grew in the telling.'”

“‘It is good to begin well; it is better to end well,'” comments Howard Shore. “This simple phrase has come to mind often as I approach the end of this epic project. I believe that we all have felt a great spirit leading us and guiding us to the finish. We all focused on perfecting the small details of our work each day in the hope that, together, they would produce a wonderful whole, a complete world to experience and for generations to enjoy. We worked seriously and steadily, but always with good humor.”

Standout selections of The Lord of the Rings: The Return Of The King include such Howard Shore originals as “Minas Tirith,” “Twilight And Shadow;” “A Storm Is Coming” and “The End Of All Things.” The film’s title track features Sir James Galway, Renée Fleming and Lord Of The Rings star Viggo Mortensen.

Music for The Lord of the Rings: The Return Of The King was produced by Howard Shore. Executive Album Producers are Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Paul Broucek. Executive Producer for WMG Soundtracks is Danny Bramson.

On December 17, New Line Cinema’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King concludes the compelling journeys at the heart of J.R.R. Tolkien’s revered trilogy. Produced, co-written and directed by Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is produced by Barrie M. Osborne, Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson. The screenplay is by Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Jackson based on the book by J.R.R. Tolkien. Cast members include (in alphabetical order) Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Brad Dourif, Bernard Hill, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, John Noble, Miranda Otto, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Liv Tyler, Karl Urban, Hugo Weaving, David Wenham, and Elijah Wood.

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Wellingtons finest digi-bongo-acapella-rap-influenced, guitar-based bongo-funk group are back for a one-off charity performance this Saturday. On November the 1st, Flight of the Conchords will be playing at the Buffalo Grand Hall, upstairs from Bats Theatre in Wellington NZ, starting at 10pm.

Tickets will be sold for $15, and there will be door sales only.

The concert is in aid of a production currently playing in the Bats ‘Stab’ season. DnA is a story based on a Greek tragedy, but the cast and crew have had their own particular bad luck, with thousands of dollars worth of theatre equiptment stolen two weeks ago.

DnA’s director, Jacqueline Coats comments “When things like the robbery happen, it makes the world seem a bit bleak, but then you get support like we’ve had from the Conchords and everyone else, and you realise there are good people out there.” DnA will have its last performance on Saturday night before the gig.

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Ranger writes: I was on the Greater Union Birch Carroll & Coyle (Australia’s biggest and oldest cinema chain) website and saw on their page for ROTK the running time listed as 210mins (3 hours and 30 mins). I filled out their online contact us form and asked them if this was the offical running time or not. I got this reply a few mins ago:

Thank you for your email.

Greater Union/Birch Carroll & Coyle

So there you have it! You cant email them directly, you have to fill out the online form thing. This seems pretty concrete to me!

The Greater Union site is “a 50/50 joint venture” with Roadshow Distributors according to their website. So I guess we can hardly get a better confirmation than that. Roadshow are the ones who distribute the prints to the cinemas in Australia!

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JediBO writes: Just a note to let everyone know that the Lord of the Rings weekend at Lincoln Center on Jan. 10-11 is sold out. Tickets went on sale this morning at 10 am by phone and at 11 am at the box office.

Initially I called, but after being put on hold for 45 minutes I was disconnected and decided to take a cab over to 66th and Broadway. When I got there at 11:15, there was a winding line of about 50 people standing in a constant rainy drizzle.

At 11:20, a security officer came out from the box office to tell everyone that Saturday’s events were completely sold out _ the only thing still available was “A Conversation with Peter Jackson” on Sunday. When I finally got to the ticket booth I asked how it was possible that the movie viewings were sold out if tickets just went on sale a half-hour ago and there were only 50 people in front of me. He said that Lincoln Center season-ticket holders got first dibs, and they were snatched up ahead of time. Phone-line tie ups and quick box-office sell outs?

This is starting to sound like Trilogy Tuesday all over again. Anyway, I was able to snag a pair of tix to Sunday’s event, so I’m looking forward to that.

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Ringer Spy CJ wrote in what must be the first review we have from the Extended Cut from The Two Towers that will appear on the Extended DVD (available from November 18th)! Mind you, it does contain a lot of spoilers!!

I saw the Two Towers Extended Edition over a week ago and am happy to report that fans are in for a treat. I cannot go into the events the led to my wonderful good fortune, or I might end up like an orc trying to flee Helm’s Deep.

I thought the Fellowship EE did a nice job of fleshing out the story and adding things that fans would have liked to have seen in the original but I thought Two Towers EE was a more substantial improvement over the theatrical release. Many of the new scenes really helped explain dialog or events that were in the original cut. A small example is when Frodo and Sam are eating Lembas near the beginning of the movie and Frodo says to Sam something like, ‘Sam ,there is nothing that can dampen your spirits is there?’ and Sam looks over and says ‘Those rain clouds might.’ In the theatrical release, the next scene shows Frodo and Sam wandering through the fog, soon to realize they are going in circles. In the extended edition, the next scene shows the Hobbits sitting under their cloaks getting drenched which follows a comment about pending rain much better than a fog bank. It also serves as a nice intro to Gollum as he peeps over a rock ledge from above (I’m pretty sure I have seen this shot posted). I will not try and go through everything I remember- I must say I really enjoyed being surprised by the stuff I was not expecting. But for those of you who like to know in advance here are a few new scenes:

When Merry and Pippin are drinking the ent draught, they wrestle over the jug it is in and fall at the roots of a tree which proceeds to suck them in until Treebeard shows up and pulls a Tom Bombadil and rescues them. I am not sure if the literalists will appreciate this nod to old man willow (it did not look like a willow tree to me), but I liked it and it emphasized that the forest is dangerous and edgy which made it all the more cool when the forest started off to Helms Deep and then when the orcs ran into the forest at the end. The final forest shot reminded me of the shot of the orcs who are taking Merry and Pippin to Saruman at the beginning of the film, right after one exclaims ‘It looks like meat is back on the menu boys!’ No flying organs, but a mass of violent writhing. Ironic, but a nice link… and very PJ.

There is more dialog as Gimili, Legolas and Aragorn enter fangorn in which Legolas says that the Elves originally taught the trees to talk and Gimili exclaims that he can’t think of anything trees would have to talk about except squirrel crap. I thought his comment was a bit awkward, which is probably why I remember it, but most of the new dialog was great. There were many new (more successful in my opinion) humorous moments which I thought really fleshed out the movie since so much of it is dark and violent.

For example… Merry and Pippin make several comments about good ‘pipe weed’ and there are some Flotsam and Jetsam scenes at the end where they find apples and what looked like a turkey or big chicken floating in the flood and follow the goods into a storage room where they find barrels of the good stuff. There is a funny scene where Treebeard walks up to the open door in the ruins and peeks down through it. All you hear is Merry and Pippin having a good time in the room with clouds of smoke billowing out into the air.

There is a scene with Wormtoungue riding back to Isenguard. Wormtongue describes Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimili to Saruman who asks about Aragorn. Wormtongue describes Aragorn’s ring and Saruman looks it up in a book and says something to the effect of ‘So Gandalf thinks he has found the heir of Isildur… No matter…’ That’s what he thinks!

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