Wiredkiwi sends us some additional info on the horses used for the films:

A grey Andalusian stallion named Florian was used for close up and stunt work, and his (now) owner was the riding double for Liv Tyler. Florian now gives displays at equestrian events around NZ and is standing at stud.

Strider’s horse in the film is a very high profile stallion in NZ, being one of the top dressage horses in the country, owned, trained and ridden by Bill Noble. Can’t remember the name of the horse for the life of me though. Rumor has it that Viggio Mortensen, who was the most enthused about horses of the ‘fellowship’ liked him so much he tried to by him after filming. However this was not the bay Andalusian offered for sale.

NZ Horse and Pony maazine would possibly be able to supply you with the full copy and perhaps images of the feature they did on the LOTR horses.

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dapascha writes:

Here’s a translation of a Dutch press release by the distributor of LotR here, A-Film, about new records being set here in the Netherlands:

Amsterdam, december 19th 2002

Lord of the Rings opens with record numbers

On Wednesday december 18th The Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers opened with a record number of visitors. Over 50.000 people went to see the film on the first day and caused a record box-office opening of over 350,000 Euro. With this amount the second part of the Lord of the Rings breaks the record previously set by Spider-Man that held an opening day box-office of 259,295 Euro.

Many theaters decided to re-release the Fellowship of the Ring on the day before the premiere of the Two Towers, which caused the unique situation where two parts of one trilogy are in the Box-Office Top 10 at the same time. The Two Towers, based on Tolkiens famous novel,  plays at 148 screens in the Netherlands. The third part, The Return of the King is expected in theaters in december 2003.

Other top-films:

Harry Potter, part 1 – 259,271 euro
Harry Potter, part 2 – 214,066 euro
Jurassic Park – 114,809 euro

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A gallery in Santa Moncia, California, called “Every Picture Tells A Story… ” will be hosting a new major exhibit, “The Brothers Hildebrandt: Tolkien Art”…running January 18 through February 18. Over 30 Lord of the Rings paintings will be on display, as well as over 60 rarely seen sketches, studies and prints. Greg and Tim Hildebrandt will be appearing in person on Saturday. January 18 from 2 to 4 PM at the gallery.

Every Picture Tells A Story, which showcases the original art and prints from illustrated books, is located at 1318 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Phone is (310)451-2700 and online at Everypicture.com

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Bill writes:

Jim Rygiel and Randall Cook spoke at a session at the Australian Effects and Animation Festival at the beginning of this month. During this session where they spoke to a (slightly disappointed) audience about the effects they used in FOTR, as they were unable to show any TTT footage before the release of the movie.

They mentioned that they were working on the DVD versions of TTT, and had an extra 120 shots they were working on. (I don’t know if they are going to release the same type of DVDs as in FOTR: first the cinema release, then an extended release later in the year, but I would expect so.) This means devoted fans should be able to again see more of the film that was allowable by New Line in their three hour limit on the theatrical release.

Some extra information that they did have was that since every shot in the TTT movie is digitally manipulated to some extent (compared to 70% or FOTR), they have the whole movie online and will try to use this digital version to create the DVD instead of another conversion process from film.

Other pieces of information: the have about 100 Terabytes of ‘near-line’ (automated data tape archive) with a lot of archived early work saved, instead of just the final masters. Jim (or was it Randall) pulled out their sample shots out of this archive for their talk just before travelling to Australia. It was amazing to see how many old animation versions are stored somewhere in their systems.

Some of the material they talked about used in the official web site Effects pages, but a lot of their talk covered the FOTR Cave Troll and the Bridge scenes. Some of the scenes they were working on for TTT and ROTK were taking up to 2-3 hours per frame, and that is using about 1400 CPUs in their render farm.

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Here’s a transcript of the Sean Astin MSN chat for everyone who was unable to make it. Thanks to Ringer Fan Nicole for making this available to us.

Sean_Astin_Live says: Hi! It’s an exciting moment to experience the second film. It’s cool!

Sean_Astin_Live says: A special hello to everyone who went to go see it!

DishDiva says: Sean, were you surprised the film made $42 million the first day?

Sean_Astin_Live says: I no longer have a guage for success. What I was surprised with, that it was 40% more than what “The Fellowship of the Rings” made last year.

HangNLBC in Onstage_1 asks: Do you still spend any time with the other cast members now that filming is finished? Hang U.S.

Sean_Astin_Live says: We continue to see each other all over the world as we promote the film. We socialize occasionally; I see Elijah and Dom lives with my brother Mackenzie. We aren’t far enough away from the movie to drift apart.

HangNLBC in Onstage_1 asks: Do you consider yourself a sexy Hobbit? (I do)

Sean_Astin_Live says: Who am I to argue with you?

Sean_Astin_Live says: I had to read that question to my wife, she smiled, she had better think I was a sexy hobbit for Pete’s sake.

AllegroConMoto in Onstage_1 asks: I had thought that the scene where Sam watches Frodo sleep and sees “a light shining faintly” had been filmed. Do you know why it didn’t make it into the movie?

Sean_Astin_Live says: There was so much that was cut, they were desperate to get it to 3 hours. I’m sure they will be back in the DVD. The quick answer is just for time, the economics of the business is if it’s over 3 hours, they don’t make as much money. Those light and tender moments were the most fun to film and on the first film, it was good to see them back in the DVD.

Sanji16 in Onstage_1 asks: Hi Sean. I heard that You and the other nine members of the “fellowship” got tattoos of the elven nine where did you get yours?

Sean_Astin_Live says: Mine is on the outside of my right ankle. And let me just say, IT HURT! That’s where I got mine because that’s where Billy Boyd selected and it seemed most appropriate.

Needsomemoola in Onstage_1 asks: How much time did it take to get your makeup and outfits on for the film?

Sean_Astin_Live says: They would take about 1 hours and 15 minutes for the feet and 1 hour 15 minutes for the wig, ears, and makeup. So it was about 2 1/2 hours to get it all on and about 45 minutes to take it all off.

TacticalLizard in Onstage_1 asks: I hear that Elijah, Dom and Billy are huge music fans. What kind of music are you into?

Sean_Astin_Live says: Elijah is really the cutting edge music guru. He was turning me onto Moby, Beck, single syllable new artists. (laughs) I’m sort of the old nerd hobbit. My wife and I listen to James Taylor or Elton John. Everything I like Elijah hates, but the opposite is not true for me. I liked pretty much all the stuff he listened to. It was like going to another country when I would go into a CD store with Elijah. I feel that this is a generic answer because people who are really into music can get so estoric.

Sean_Astin_Live says: I used to always say my favorite was Billy Joel. I like classic rock, 70’s rock, and Boston. I can get into any music that anyone listens to.

Doh99 in Onstage_1 asks: Would you say the The Lord of the Rings has been the toughest movie you have worked on?

Sean_Astin_Live says: Without question.

ResultantLil_Bit77 in Onstage_1 asks: If you could chat with anyone in the world, who would you want to talk to?

Sean_Astin_Live says: I’m really into politics, and I don’t know if George W. sits around chat rooms, but I’d like to konw what’s on his mind. I’m not a late night romance kind of guy, I’m more of a find out what is going on in the world, kind of guy.

Sarah Proudfoot in Onstage_1 asks: Is being sam overwhelming? I’m sure you’re being approached a lot of the time from fans like.. me.. What is the wierdest fan you’ve encountered?

Sean_Astin_Live says: Outside of the Tonight Show where there was a lady who wanted me to pass a letter onto Elijah and I told her I couldn’t because I didn’t know if I could make sure he got it. I don’t know if she was genuinely upset or just inappropriately intense.

DishDiva says: (Small break as Sean talks with his daughter)

Sean_Astin_Live says: When you read a book and have an emotional experience with the characters, a lot of people cry when they read books, and the same thing happens in movies, the relationship they develop with the characters. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but in the real world you have to be careful of people who have intense reactions. I feel it’s my job not to exacerbate the problem.

Saurcamiel in Onstage_1 asks: Hi Sean! How do you like the animations they did for Gollum, did they live up to your expectations? Saurcamiel, Sweden.

Sean_Astin_Live says: I want to send a big hello to this individual because this film has broken all sorts of records in Sweden, Holland, Norway, and Denmark, and I have a great fondness for people in that part of the world. The zeal in the journalists eyes. I think Gollum steals the movie. It absolutely lived up to my expectations. There’s so much fan awareness of Gollum, he was my second favorite character, my first being Treebeard. It was very important to me that it didn’t suck.

DishDiva says: Sean, you had to gain weight to play this character. Being an actor, caring about your appearance, was it hard to gain weight to play Sam?

Sean_Astin_Live says: Yes, it was incredibly hard. It wasn’t hard physically to put the weight on, but to carry the weight and self image, it was physically and emotionally painful for me. I couldn’t imagine that it would go away. So until I lost the weight in the last couple of months, and now I can see the screen and see the character that I created and be impressed with what I did, but it was incredibly hard.

Sean_Astin_Live says: You look at yourself, and think, “LOOK how incredibly fat I am!!”

EivindSkau in Onstage_1 asks: Are there any similarities between you and Sam when you’re off the screen? Bodø, Norway

Sean_Astin_Live says: I think earnesteness, I think in life I’m an earnest fellow and I think Sam is earnest.

DuoKat in Onstage_1 asks: I heard that Orlando Was crazy from Elijah…that he was allways trying to get you guys to do stuff…What was it like working with Orlando? Did he get you do do anything “Crazy” like what he did?

Sean_Astin_Live says: Orlando and I went motorcycle riding together (laughs) and he was crazier than I. I have this self-preservation that he doesn’t have. The motorcycle guide said, “Don’t go up there.” We go along the trail and turn and don’t see Orlando, there he was at the top of the place we were specifically told not to go. (laughs)

unknown asks: What would be your most memorable experience in making the Lord of the Rings movies…like…if you could pick one moment…which would you consider to be the most memorable? Olivia, Canada.

Sean_Astin_Live says: There’s several that jump to mind, one I don’t want to talk about yet. One is not “The moment” but it’s in the running. Where we’re on the rocks outside of the mines, we flew helicopters up there. It was an emotional scene, and I rememeber going from an incredible high from flying up there in the helicopter, and then completely breaking down in the scene.

goddessofcoke in Onstage_1 asks: Hey, I’m Bkaw from NZ, was it inspiring to have so many seasoned thespians working with you on LotR?

Sean_Astin_Live says: Every single day it seemed an incredible talent walking on the set. For me, trying to absorb from other’s talents, it was great for me. Ian McKellen, and John Rys Davies, I had been a fan of his since Indiana Jones.

evil_cobra_lady in Onstage_1 asks: Mr. Astin, I would like to, someday, pursue in the acting career. What advice can you give to beginning actors like me? And what is your favorite thing about being an actor? Thanks a bunch! Serena

Sean_Astin_Live says: There’s a lot of ways to get a great experience. Getting involved in drama and the best way to learn is by doing.

Sean_Astin_Live says: The second is reading a lot. There are some great books out there. It can be a great tradition, that goes back thousands of years, telling stories to each other around the campfire. It’s important to be pragmatic, make sure you can feed yourself. I like to encourage people to follow your heart. I wish I knew the secret, steps to have a successful career. You just need to have a passion, that’s what has allowed Elijah to be where he is. For me, I never give up.

Sean_Astin_Live says: Doing work is the best way to do it.

WiZaRdWaNnAbE97 in Onstage_1 asks: I heard that you were going to be directing an episode of Angel (my favorite show), are you a fan of the show? If so, what about Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

Sean_Astin_Live says: I’ve seen a couple of episodes of “Buffy” directed by Josh Wheaton that I think were amazing. I became a fan of “Angel” and wanted to direct the show. I watched all of the last season’s episodes. I think David Boreanaz is great.

hobbiton33 in Onstage_1 asks: I’ve heard that your daughter, Alex, will be in the Return of the King, is that true?

Sean_Astin_Live says: I’m not sure yet, I haven’t seen the final movie, we’ll wait and see.

DishDiva says: Sean thanks so much for taking the time to talk with your fans from around the world.

DishDiva says: Continued success with the rest of this weekend! Happiest of holidays from all of your fans!

Sean_Astin_Live says: I’m genuinely appreciative of the energy that people are putting into the movies and giving me a great deal of pride and happiness, so wonderful holiday greetings to everyone.

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Central film in LoTR takes $26 million domestically and $16 million internationally, breaking records in eight territories.

Film also receives 2 Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture and Best Director.

Los Angeles, CA, December 19, 2002

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers stormed the global box office on its first day in theaters taking an estimated $42 million (US dollars) worldwide — up almost 45% on last year’s day one takings of $29 million for FoTR.

Two Towers took $26 million in the USA alone, and an additional $16 million outside the US.

The film broke all single day records in Denmark, and opening day records in seven other international territories, New Line Cinema president Rolf Mittweg announced.

In the USA, the film surpassed the opening day receipts of its predecessor by 44% (last year, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring opened at $18 million).

Fans lined up as early as Tuesday night for sold-out midnight showings at 3,622 theaters across the US. Opening to critical acclaim, it has become the second highest Wednesday opener — only surpassed by 1999’s Star Wars: The Phantom Menace at $28.5M).

Internationally, the film posted a $16 million gross, up 45% from last year (Fellowship bowed to an $11 million overall opening day internationally). The film is playing on nearly 12,000 screens worldwide, 6,633 screens domestic and 5,000 internationally.

“This powerful response … illustrates the true universality of Tolkien’s themes and the broad reach of Jackson’s vision,” Mittweg said.

“We’re astounded at these numbers. For a three-hour film that is central in a trilogy to open this way is energizing and tremendously exciting.”

Opening day-and-date in countries, the film broke all single day records in Denmark, and marked the highest opening day ever in Germany, Austria, Finland, Holland, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden and Norway. Further, the film posted increases from last year’s opening day of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in all territories, up as high as 98% in Belgium.

The film open in six more countries (including New Zealand, South Korea) on Thursday, and another six on Friday (including Mexico).

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