Elvish: Live in N.Y.C.
“No one knows this yet,” said Lord of the Rings screenwriter Fran Walsh. “But we need to get it out, because the fans are going to be really upset by it.”
Ms. Walsh stood in the back room of Michael‚s restaurant on Feb. 22. Around her milled other members of the creative team that had produced Oscar‚s most nominated movie. The film’s director and Ms. Walsh‚s companion, Peter Jackson, was padding about, as were the musical composer, Howard Shore; actor Christopher Lee, who plays Saruman the White; New Line co-chairman Bob Shaye; and LOTR‚s executive producer and the head of Fine Line Features, Mark Ordesky.
Ms. Walsh, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Shore each glowed with Oscar‚s kiss, but seeing that Ms. Walsh was itching to spill her guts, The Transom stuck with her.
So what exactly was burning a hole in the screenwriter‚s hard drive?
“Shelob is not going to be in part two,” she said.
For Tolkien neophytes, this may sound like news from a different dimension. But for pale-skinned Lord of the Rings nuts who have spent an estimated $700 million on tickets to the first film, it‚s big news.
“I checked [the fan site] One Ring, and there‚s a poll about what they‚re most looking forward to in the second film,” Ms. Walsh said. “They all say Shelob!”
Shelob is the evil spider-like creature that plays a pivotal role at the end of The Two Towers, the second part of Tolkien‚s trilogy.
“Of course Shelob is a major villain, and once Sam and Frodo get past her it’s basically one plot…we needed to add something, so we simply moved the Shelob bit to the third film,” Ms. Walsh said.
Mr. Jackson loped by with actor Matthew Modine in tow, and Ms. Walsh sighed. “I call him “shaggy chic‚” because he has no style,” she said of her companion. “And he has the most unruly hair.”
Although Mr. Jackson is known for his propensity to go barefoot and wear the same shorts and T-shirt for days on end, he had dressed for the luncheon in a button-down shirt that strained against his prodigious gut. The diminutive director wore weathered sneakers and walked on the balls of his feet. His brown hair was long and scraggly.
Ms. Walsh said that Donatella Versace has offered to make Mr. Jackson an Oscar suit, but that his initial response was “Aaaaaaah!” [I think she means “Aaaaaaarrggghhhh!” – Tehanu]
“He was screaming in terror,” she said. But Ms. Walsh added that her partner will “grudgingly acquiesce.”
“Oh, wait,” the screenwriter said. “Better not say grudgingly.‚ Just acquiesce.‚ No, no, not acquiesce‚ embrace‚! He’ll embrace it!”
Mr. Jackson was going to be doing a lot of embracing in the next 12 hours. Later in the evening, the crowd was headed to a swanky dinner hosted by directors Barry Levinson and Martin Scorsese and writers William Styron and Norman Mailer. The dinner had been arranged by publicist Peggy Siegal to introduce the contingent of New Zealanders and Brits to an eclectic group of New York‚s cultural cognoscenti, albeit one that could also double as the cast for an It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World remake. Guests at the dinner included actress Kyra Sedgwick, comedian Billy Crystal, essayist Stanley Crouch, director John Sayles, actress Sigourney Weaver, journalist Lally Weymouth, germ-warfare expert and anthrax target Judith Miller, writer Gay Talese, publisher Nan Talese, author Salman Rushdie, and Early Show host Bryant Gumbel.
But first there was lunch. “This is worse than the Carnegie Deli. How am I supposed to eat all this food?” said Mr. Lee when his salad was put in front of him at Michael‚s.
Mr. Lee looked more like Sherlock Holmes than Saruman. He was dressed impeccably in a checked jacket, olive vest, bright green tie and mustard corduroys. A red silk handkerchief poked from his jacket pocket.
In an earlier chapter of his life, Mr. Lee had been a military sleuth, searching for Nazi war criminals as part of Britain‚s Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects. “I have seen man‚s inhumanity to man,” he said softly.
The actor, who said he‚ll “be 80 in May “hopefully,” seemed miles from Michael‚s as he described meeting Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien in an Oxford pub.
“He was a devout man, no question about that,” said Mr. Lee, who has reread The Lord of the Rings every year since its publication.
Suddenly he erupted in what sounded like gibberish.
“Ash nazg durbatulúk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulúk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul!” he said, in an accent that was heavy on the rolled R‚s.
Mr. Lee was merely recitingˆin ancient Elvishˆthe inscription found on the ring that’s at the center of Tolkien’s trilogy.
“I’m not very good at these things,” said Mr. Lee of the event. “People misunderstand what I’m saying.”
This column ran on page 3 in the 3/4/2002 edition of The New York Observer.
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Bourget writes: Enclosed are scans of article on Orlando-Legolas’ rise to web fame from UK gossip tabloid “Now”. Apart from that, nothing new, Bloom still has an “olive complexion” and is still called “Orli” by his teenage fans.
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There and back again – a journey to middle earth
I thought I would share with theonering.net my experience on the Red Carpet Movie Tour’s LOTR ultimate fantasy 12-day tour (http://www.redcarpet-tours.com). I’m on a small VIP tour of travel agents. I’ll send in updates as time and connectivity permit. This is the ninth installment.
Feb 26th
Today was a jam-packed day. We started off early and took a detour to some amazing clay cliffs, before heading off to Tarras. We drove through Lindas Pass on our way to Tarras, and the drive is stunningly beautiful. At Tarras, we headed to the tree farm where Arwen and Frodo raced away from the Nazgul The farmer was away today, so we didn’t get to hear any great stories, but once again the land was very recognizable. They shot most of the chase scenes on the farm, both the open plain scenes and the thicker forest scenes. We walked down the road they had laid down for the cameras trucks to drive on – it was pretty cool.
We left the farm, headed for Wanaka, where the NZ Fighter Pilots Museum is. The museum has a fabulous display of old aircraft from all over, and the director, Ian, is a friend of Peter Jackson’s and a huge LOTR fan. He sells the WETA sideshow figurines at the museum, and we had a great chat with him about the movies, the books, the locations and the stars. Back on the road, we headed for Arrowtown via the Kawerau Gorge. It is very beautiful and full of fruit stands and wineries. We stopped at both to sample their wares. We made it to Arrowtown, a scenic little historic village that has the Kawerau River running through it. During filming, the town stood up on the hill and watched Arwen and Frodo fording the river to escape the Nazgul. It is a bit hard to get the actual shot they used, since you kind of need to be in the river, or on the other side, but it certainly was the right place.
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We stayed in Arrowtown to have dinner at the internationally known restaurant, Saffron. The food was fantastic, and the waiter assured us that that was were the LOTR bunch ate when they were in town. Finally, we ended the day in Queenstown, a fabulous town in a breathtakingly beautiful area of NZ. We went down to the city center on the lake to watch the sun go down behind the mountains – outstanding! We also saw the Irish pub that we think is the one the hobbits liked to frequent when they were living in Queenstown. All in all, another incredible day.
Tomorrow – locations around Queenstown, Glenorchy and a jet boat safari.
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lee writes: I bought this on an impulse, because LOTR is mentioned on the cover, and found it contained more than I expected. I thought you might like to see the scans but yahoo will only let me send 3 files at a time so I’ll try to send articles together and pages in sequence. TCW has a heading ‘NO. 1 FOR TRADING CARDS’, but elsewhere describes itself as the only magazine devoted to TC in the UK so it would be hard for it to be NO. 2.
These attachments are the front cover, the contents page and a news update mentioning CD rom cards.
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Nona writes: This scan was done by “Winter” from the LOTR Info group. It’s an enlargement of one of the pictures from the Variety booklet that’s in the most recent variety. As you can see – Boromir is clearly not Sean Bean!
There’s also some question as to whether some of the other actors are really who they’re supposed to be – although Winter says it’s her scanner, and they all are who they are – except Boromir.
So…who is Boromir? Is it Sean Bean’s stand-in? Is it the “tall” Boromir (for when the Hobbits are played by their normal-sized actors). And why is Sean Bean missing from the picture? (as well as the two other Hobbits)?
Xoanon here, I think this may just be a stand in for Sean Bean, who knows, he may have been unavailable for this shot, or perhaps they were going to digitally place Sean’s face over this stand-in, personally I think it’s funny, but I’m curious to know who that fellow is, and if you’re reading this drop me a line!
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Sierra Entertainment, Inc. Announces Development of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit Videogame for Nintendo GameCube
Gamers to Assume Role of Bilbo Baggins in His Epic Adventure
BELLEVUE, Wash., Feb. 19 /PRNewswire/ — Sierra Entertainment, Inc., a studio of Vivendi Universal Publishing, today announced development of “The Hobbit,” a videogame based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s worldwide best-selling novel. The game is due to be released in 2003 for the Nintendo GameCube.
“The Hobbit,” developed by Austin, Texas-based Inevitable Entertainment, is a third-person action/adventure game set in the world of Middle-Earth. In the game, players take the persona of Bilbo Baggins, an unassuming hobbit who has been unwittingly thrust into an epic adventure. “Bringing the epic worlds described in Tolkien’s works to life through a video game has been an amazing experience,” said Russell Byrd, managing director at Inevitable Entertainment.
“The Hobbit is one of the pre-eminent fantasy works of all time and is perfectly suited to be the inspiration for a great game,” said Mike Ryder, president of Sierra Entertainment, Inc. “The book provides a tremendous amount of rich material from which we expect to make a fantasy game that lives up to the extremely high expectations of Tolkien’s fans worldwide.”
Under its multi-year deal with Tolkien Enterprises, Sierra has exclusive rights to create video games based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary work The Hobbit.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have set the standard for fantasy writers and creators of epic worlds. The novels are massive best sellers, having sold close to 100 million copies worldwide and been translated into 26 different languages. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is the subject of three movies being created by New Line Cinema, the first of which, The Fellowship of the Ring, was released on December 19, 2001 and is one of the hottest movies of 2001/2002.
ABOUT INEVITABLE ENTERTAINMENT
Inevitable Entertainment Inc., http://www.inevitable.com, is a cutting edge video game development studio based in Austin, Texas. Inevitable was founded in March, 2000 by top ex-management personnel from Iguana Entertainment and prides itself on creating AAA titles for the Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft XBox, and Nintendo GameCube.
ABOUT SIERRA
Sierra Entertainment, Inc. http://www.sierra.com, a studio of Vivendi Universal Publishing and part of its Games division, is one of the original developers and largest worldwide publishers of interactive entertainment and productivity software. Sierra is renowned for releasing critically acclaimed and award winning titles that represent a wide variety of computer entertainment on both next generation console and PC platforms.
About Vivendi Universal Publishing
Vivendi Universal Publishing (VU Publishing), the publishing division of the world’s second largest communications group (Vivendi Universal), is an international leader in multi-platform publishing and content distribution. As one of the top three players in the global publishing market and the only publisher with an international reach, the Company’s key content areas include literature, reference, education, games and consumer press. VU Publishing publishes content in four major languages, including English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, and has strong local publishing brands, including Anaya, Atica, Houghton Mifflin, Knowledge Adventure, Larousse, Nathan and Scipione. In the games category, VU Publishing is a leading publisher of online, PC and console-based games. Its studios include Blizzard Entertainment, Sierra Entertainment, Inc. and Universal Interactive.
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