LORDOFTHERINGS.NET GENERATES 41 MILLION HITS SINCE RELAUNCH FRIDAY
(Los Angeles, January 15, 2001) – New Line Cinema’s website for its upcoming action adventure trilogy The Lord of The Rings continues to generate astounding levels of traffic on the Internet with more than 41 million hits since re-launching on Friday.
In the earliest hours of the re-launch of www.lordoftherings.net, more than one million hits an hour were recorded from people exploring the content-rich destination. New Line will unveil the first installment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy on December 19th with the release of The Fellowship of the Ring.
“The Internet has always been an important part of our marketing strategy for this property and the numbers speak for themselves,” said Joe Nimziki, President of Theatrical Marketing for New Line Cinema.
“There have been few film properties that have generated this kind of interest in the history of the Internet,” said Gordon Paddison, Senior Vice President of Interactive Marketing and Business Development. “The Lord of the Rings has inspired literally hundreds of fan sites and they all have a ravenous appetite for news and information about this project. We are tremendously flattered by this overwhelming response and the challenge now is to make sure that we continue to deliver a satisfying, fun and informative experience for those using the web to keep up to date on our films.”
Web fans travelling to the site find an environment loaded with up-to-the-minute production information, interviews with the filmmakers and cast, photos, an IPIX tour of a set, downloadable screensavers, a web browser, and an interactive map of Middle Earth. In all, users could spend upwards of two hours on the site and not explore all of the content available to them. New elements will be added weekly during the next four years.
Beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, January 19th, fans will be able to view the film’s first theatrical trailer using Real Networks video streaming technology.
Generations of more than 100 million people around the globe have grown up with this epic novel. The legend has been translated into 40 different languages and inspired an entire genre of movies and fiction, and has influenced some of the greatest artists of our time. Just last year, THE LORD OF THE RINGS was named the number one most popular book of the century. But it has never been told in its entirety on the screen.
Using the power of contemporary cinema technology, New Line Cinema is proud to transform J.R.R. Tolkien’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS into a history-making motion picture event.
Beginning on December 19, 2001, New Line will present a grand trilogy of live-action feature films — The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The three separately released installments will also mark the return of “Cliffhanger Cinema” for the first time since the serial adventures of decades past.
The Lord of the Rings will collectively re-tell the story of Frodo Baggins, who battles against the Dark Lord, Sauron to save Middle-earth from the grip of evil. In the films, Frodo and The Fellowship embarks on a desperate journey to rid the earth of the source of Sauron’s greatest strength, the One Ring — a ring of such power that it cannot be destroyed. His extraordinary adventures across the treacherous landscape of Middle-earth reveal how the power of friendship and courage can hold the forces of darkness at bay.
Tolkien’s mythic vision will come to life through cutting-edge cinema technology and artistry. Never before has such a monumental undertaking been contemplated or executed. The commitment of time, resources and manpower are unheard of as all three films and more than 1,000 effects shots are being produced concurrently with the same director and core cast.
Helmer Peter Jackson, whose visionary style of filmmaking and emotional acuity won accolades for his Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners, brings his deep love for the source material to the project. Produced by Barrie M. Osborne, the films feature a strong international cast that includes (in alphabetical order) Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Brad Dourif, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, John Rhys-Davis, Andy Serkis, Liv Tyler, and Elijah Wood. But the real star of the films is the story itself – a classic hero’s quest in which the smallest of beings changes the course of the future with the vastness of his courage.
Here’s a round-up of some of the interesting comments and guesses we’ve received concerning the trailer and the images on the official website.
“Did you notice it was Bruce Spence in the make-up section of the new official site? Check the pic! We know his part, but more interesting… he’s being retouching outdoor, which means we see him in his complete prosthetic stuff (you don’t glue another silicon part just before a shoot) -mouth and nose. That’s what they’re colouring with their lil brushes and pencils… no more no less. Now… What can we guess? Obviously, “the Mouth of Sauron” will be centered on a mouth! A rotten one, with a full helmet hiding most of the face.
I just hope they could manage two holes large enough to get to Spence’s particuliar stare.”
Thanks to Deagol for that. And Morten noticed this:
“As the story goes the Banner of Rohan with the white horse against the green background was inspired by the Wiltshire Horse and its like (huge horses carved by removing a layer of grass revealing the chalk below).
I’m sure you’ve already noticed but I just found it really cool that one of the banners (bottom right) on one of the desktop images (found under the Screensavers section of the official website) actually looks like one of these old carvings.”
JR. had a guess about the glimpse of Arwen in the trailer:
“I think I figured out what the scene of Arwen in the trailer represents. If you remember from the appendix, Aragorn and Arwen pledged their love for one another on a hill in Lothlorien. The hill was covered in flowers. This has GOT to be from that scene.”
Adam saw the same picture in a more sombre light:
“This is just a guess on my part but I remember Peter Jackson saying in an interview that they expanded Arwen’s part quite abit from the epilogue
following the Return of the King….in the epilogue Arwen refuses to join Elrond in the journey over the sea. If Arwen stayed she would lose her immortality but live longer than any man. Aragorn lived a very long time for a man but died in his kingdom. Arwen stayed there for a time in but eventually left thier kingdom and went into the forest. The epilogue says she laid under a tree and passed on into eternity. That’s my speculation with no offical source.”
Would they show this in the trailer? Would they show this in the film at all? I wonder if they add punch to Arwen’s hard choice by making her able to forsee her own death in a premonition, if she chooses mortality? That would work, visually.
We are getting reports and reactions about the New Line Cinema theatrical trailer of The Lord of the Rings from all over the world. The reactions are mixed, possibly due more to the fact that many were expecting a long trailer full of dialog and longer clips. However, from the e-mails you’ve sent in, the general impression is that the trailer was definitely worth seeing. (Well, of course it was… It’s LOTR!!!) Here are some excerpts from the multitude of mail we have received:
Kailin of California stated, “It’s not that great of a trailer, it’s more of a teaser, and shows all the characters, but doesn’t name them. Some of the images look incredible, but for those who didn’t know what it was at first, they would have no idea what there were seeing. Oh well, I liked it, and I liked 13 Days, so it was a good night at the theater.” Nathan and friend, also from California, “… were greatful to see a large golden ring floating right there in front of our eyes. We enjoyed the trailer (teaser) but hope there will be several more over the next year (more dialogue please!)”
A fan from Worcester, MA, said, “It was just so cool to watch it, as short as it was (seemed, anyway), with a theater full of people.” She adds, “BTW, I didn’t like 13 days very much. In at LEAST 5 scenes (husband says several more), you can see the microphone dangling over the actors’ heads!!! The audience was LAUGHING every time this happened! I do NOT want to see a mike dangling over Gandalf’s head!” Lol, neither do we! Just smoke rings please.
Beakster in Glasgow, Scotland, saw the trailer in front of ‘Lost Souls’. He was excited to see they had put the trailer in separate from the others and in full widescreen. Dave in New Hampshire said, “Verrrrrrrrrry good treatment in Londonderry and Hooksett New Hampshire theatres . They each showed the trailer once in the beginning and end of show!”
Old Toby of Dearborn, MI, wrote this: “My heart was pounding for the next 10 minutes after seeing it. Not that the trialer was super awesome, but just seeing the characters on the big screen gave me the shakes.” Pulse from Texas commented, “I especially liked it when they put ‘The Return of the King’ up whenever Aragorn walked by. Very cool.”
Debbie in Texas had technical difficulties viewing the trailer. Only half the trailer’s screen was visible, so the management allowed her to stay and watch it the next time it ran. Mitch from Indiana loved what he saw but was a bit disappointed. “I wanted it to be at least TWICE as long… and I felt that the first glimpse we received on the Web — the Quicktime clip — was in many ways a BETTER preview. It was good… and whetted my appetite… but — like all good fans – I wanted much, much MORE!”
Jonathan of Chicago, Christian of Duluth, Minnesota, and Sughosh of Mississippi were very disappointed that the theater they went to did not show the trailer at all. Fans in Tennessee fared much better. A group went to see the teaser on Friday night and loved it so much they asked the manager if they could watch it once more. They say it was even better the second time around! Lindulan, also of Tennessee, wrote this, “We saw it last night in Nashville, TN. My sister called me earlier today from Atlanta, GA, where she was in line to see it. They had a sign posted outside the theatre stating ‘If you are here only to see the LOTR trailer, you will not receive a refund’ so I assume that is a “hit” there.”
Marsha of Ohio saw the trailer and hopes New Line will let Peter Jackson do the next one. She said, “I am hoping that New Line will take Harry Knowles’ advice and let PJ do the next one. Also, that they start emphasizing the story since I also think that the best way to reach the non-Ringer audience is going to be by drawing them into the story. This trailer, unfortunately, was too disjointed for anyone other than fanatics like us to really have any idea what it is about!”
Tolkien fans are finding mixed success in their attempts to view the much anticipated Fellowship of the Ring trailer, and emails are pouring in. We’ve heard from folks who have driven for hours only to be bitterly disappointed, and others who have been treated graciously by theaters to two trailer viewings after the feature! Please call your theater before you go so your time is well-spent. The latest results, as of the final update (1/14/00):
Birmingham, AL: one miss Decatur, AL: one hit, River Oaks 8 at Colonial Mall Florence, AL: one miss, Capri Four Montgomery, AL: one miss Fayettville, AR: one hit, Razorback 6 Campbell, CA: one hit, Plaza Theater Corona, CA: one hit, Edwards 15 Fremont, CA: one hit, Cindome 8 Fresno, CA: one hit, Fresno Stadium 21 Los Angeles, CA: two hits, United Artists Westwood, Mann Theaters on Ventura Blvd Mountain View, CA: one hit Oceanside, CA: one miss but reportedly attatched to wrong film Redding, CA: one miss, Cinemark Movies 10 Theaters Riverbank, CA: one hit, Galaxy 12 Theaters near Modesto San Diego, CA: one hit, Mira Mesa 18 Cinema San Jose, CA: one miss, Century 16 in Mountain View Santa Cruz, CA: one miss, Cinema 9 Signature Theaters Woodland, CA: one hit, State Theater Denver, CO: one hit Manchester, CT: one miss, Buckland Hills Theater (How dare they!!! Those Brandybucks!) Decatur, AL: one hit, Showcase Cinemas Miami, FL: one miss, Regal Kendall 9 Orlando, FL one hit Pensacola, FL: one miss at Carmike 10; one hit, Cordova 4 Alpharetta, GA: one hit, United Artists Theater, North Point Mall Athens, GA: one hit Douglasville, GA: one hit, Regal Cinema, Arbor Place Mall Savannah, GA: one miss Boise, ID: one hit, Edwards 21 Cinema Bloomingtond, IL: one hit, Parkway Cinemas Chicago, IL: one miss, The Sony Esquire; one hit, Webster Loews theater near DePaul St. Charles, IL one hit, Regal Charlestown Mall 18 Theater Warrenville, IL: one hit, AMC 30 Woodridge, IL: one hit Indianapolis, IN: one miss, Lowes (Sony) Cherry Tree; one hit, Kerostes Theaters Showlplace 16 Goshen, IN: one hit Hobart, IN: one hit, Loew’s Theater Des Moins, IO: one hit, Carmike Cinemas New Olreans, LA: one hit, Palace 20 Cambridge, MA: one hit, Landmark’s Kendell Square Hadley, MA: one hit Springfield, MA: one miss, Showcase Theaters Worcester, MA: one hit, Showcase Cinemas, Worcester North Baltimore, MD: one hit, Lowe’s Cinema, the Avenue at White Marsh Dearborn, MI: one hit, Star Theatre Fairlane Livonia, MI: one hit, AMC 20 Deluth, MN: one miss Edina, MN: one hit, Centennial Lakes Lakeville, MN: one miss at a ‘HUGE’ theater Minneapolis, MN: one miss St. Paul, MN: one hit, Maplewood II Theater St. Louise, MO: one hit at Werenburg Theater Gulport, MS: one miss Raleigh/Durham, NC: reportedly available at ‘all Consolidated theaters in the Triangle area’ including Raleigh Grande and Crossroads 20 Wilmington, NC: one hit, Carmike 6 Wiston/Salem, NC: one hit, Wynnsong 12 Lincoln, NE: one hit, Edgewood 3 Londonderry/Hooksett NH: one hit, trailer shown before and after feature East Hanover, NJ: one miss, East Hanover Loews Alamogordo, NM: one hit Las Cruces, NM: one miss Staten Island, NY: one miss, UA/Travis Westbury, NY: one miss Columbus, OH: one miss, one hit Dayton, OH: one hit, Hollywood 20 Toledo, OH: one miss, Showcase Maumee (?sic) Oklahoma City, OK: one hit, Quail Springs Cinema Tulsa, OK: one hit, Dickenson Starworld 20 Medford, OR: one hit, Tinseltown Portland, OR: one hit, Evergreen Parkway Regal Cinemas Delmont, PA: one miss Johnstown, PA: one miss, Richland Mall Cinemas Quakertown, PA: one hit, Regal 12 Washington, PA: one miss, Hollywood Theaters, Washington Crown Center Mall Memphis, TN: one miss; hits at Collierville Town Cinema, Wolfchase Galleria Nashville, TN: two hits, one at Green Hills Cinema Bedford, TX: one hit, UA Bedford 10 Houston, TX: one miss,Tinsel Town-Cinemark Westchase; two hits, northwest at Tinseltown 290 and southwest side Lubbock, TX: one hit, Cinemark Tinseltown McKinney, TX: one hit Frisco, TX: one hit, Stonebriar AMC 24 Provo, UT: one miss, Wynnsong 12; one hit, Carmike at Provo Towne Centre Salt Lake City, UT: one hit, Century 16 Abingdon, VA: initial miss but later theater gave double viewing! Richmond, VA: one hit, Regal Cinemas Virginia Commons Theater Burlington, VT: one miss, Nickelodeon Theater Norfolk, VA: one miss, Cinemark 18 Merrifield, VA: one miss, Arlington Boulevard/Lee Highway Multiplex Cinema Seatle, WA: hits at Meridian 16 and Metro’s Cinema Spokane, WA: hit at AMC 30
New Line Cinema Gives ‘Rings’ Trilogy
A Big Push on Web for Obsessive Fans
By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The first installment in New Line Cinema’s “Lord of the Rings” film trilogy won’t hit theaters until December. But this Friday, the studio’s “Rings” Web site will begin serving up behind-the-scenes tidbits such as how makeup artists glued hair on the feet of the movie’s mythical Hobbits.
It’s a resource that only the most obsessive fans of the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy saga are ever likely to plumb thoroughly — and they’ll get plenty of time to try. The new, more elaborate version of the site is the center of a five-year online promotional push that may represent the most ambitious Web effort yet by a Hollywood studio. With military precision, New Line plans to roll out a stream of information on the making of the “Rings” movies several times a week from now in to 2004, when all three movies will have been released.
The goal is to have “new stuff happening constantly, so [Web users] will want to keep coming back,” says Joe Nimziki, president of theatrical marketing for New Line, a unit of Time Warner Inc. The site’s content will be available in 10 foreign languages, including Finnish, Japanese and Swedish.
The online push for “The Lord of the Rings” series may be a sign of where Hollywood is going in its quest to exploit the Internet. Film Web promotions have largely been limited to sweepstakes, basic games and publicity photos. No site thus far has been able to match the online success of 1999’s “The Blair Witch Project,” which managed to create hype with a series of mysterious online teasers.
Hoping to do the same, some filmmakers are starting to view their Web efforts as long-term projects that can stoke interest in films and their tie-ins long before — and after — they hit theaters. Starwars.com (starwars.com), for one, continues to draw hundreds of thousands of monthly users.
For the coming film “Tomcats,” Revolution Studios started an online contest, in which users would vote on casting extras, a year before its scheduled release this spring. Threshold Entertainment, which owns online entertainment site TheThreshold.com (thethreshold.com), plans to launch Internet prequel episodes more than a year in advance of a planned animated film titled “Food Fight.”
But few such efforts will be as high profile, or high stakes, as New Line’s project for the “Rings” epic, which follows the quest of a band of adventurers to destroy a magic ring sought by a powerful evil lord. The studio — which declines to discuss its online expenses but says partner companies are sharing them –chose to film all three “Rings” movies in one marathon shoot in New Zealand. Though the productions are on schedule, the projected cost of the effects-rich trilogy is now at $270 million, up from earlier estimates of about $180 million. The films will be released in the holiday seasons of 2001, 2002 and 2003.
The launch of the new version of the site (lordoftherings.net) was carefully timed to coincide with the U.S. debut of the theatrical trailer on Friday. (The trailer won’t be shown online until Jan. 19, after it has been shown in other theaters around the world.)
Online interest in the films is already ferocious. New Line launched the first version of the site in May 1999 and soon was providing basic production facts as well as message boards and community sites for “Rings” fans. Today, Tolkien aficionados have on their own created about 400 Internet destinations, flooding the Web with information including grammatical deconstructions of the novels’ made-up languages and weather conditions at New Zealand airports. An online preview trailer from New Line drew about 1.7 million downloads in 24 hours in April, and more than 35,000 people have joined online clubs that users set up using the studio’s Web site.
The challenge for the new version is to “expand the audience while respecting the core audience,” says Bob Friedman, co-chairman of world-wide marketing for New Line. The updated site is designed to satisfy both those who are looking for the basics on “Rings” stars like Liv Tyler and Elijah Wood, and for Tolkien worshippers who require a steady diet of much more detailed information.
Michael Regina, a Montreal college student who edits news on TheOneRing.net (theonering.net), says he plans to be sitting at his basement computer when the new online material goes live at 12:01 a.m. Pacific time on Friday, so he can rush to post summaries and comments. He has been getting more than a hundred e-mails a day about the new trailer and site.
The current site already gets about 100,000 visitors a month, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, an Internet research firm. But so far they tend to skew toward middle-aged men, with relatively few female users. To reach new fans, the studio has worked closely with the online arm of E! Entertainment Television, which has a following among women. New Line has also forged an alliance with software firm RealNetworks Inc., which will create a button on its popular Web video player that guides users directly to a “Rings” Web channel. The studio also hopes to work with the American Film Institute on a Web-based educational curriculum built largely around the making of the trilogy.
The new version of the “Rings” Web site will include interviews with people who worked behind the scenes, such as a production worker who helped make boulders for the set and a sculptor who will discuss stylistic differences in the furniture used by the Elf and Dwarf characters. New Line will also offer features accessible only to people who download a special “Rings” browser.
The site will build up its trove of information gradually. It will begin with descriptions of the film’s crew, listing the names of every member, right down to the employees who handled the horses. Eventually, it will include interviews and videos of nearly every crew and cast member.
The site will also explain the construction of the Hobbits’ village and how actors were transformed into Hobbits, from the application of foot hair to the making of their pointy Latex ears. Later, an interactive map of the story’s setting, Middle-earth, will highlight sections dedicated to other races in Tolkien’s fantasy world and their home regions.
The logistics for gathering such material were complex. Much of the online video comes from two documentary film crews that haunted the set for months. New Line’s senior vice president of world-wide interactive marketing and business development, Gordon Paddison, posted his own digital cameraman to New Zealand to gather three weeks of Web-only video footage. The New Line staff sifted through boxes of videotapes, eventually editing them down to brief digital segments. Mr. Paddison himself estimates he sat through about 40 to 50 hours of “Rings”-related video.
To create foreign-language versions of the site, New Line worked with its overseas distributors to translate some 70 pages of text. Mr. Paddison and his three-person staff regularly get late-night calls from their partners overseas about problems such as rendering the unique “Lord of the Rings” logo font into other languages. In one early setback, some distributors’ workers accidentally threw out CD-ROMs containing graphics for their sites; future updates will be sent via e-mail.
I caught a superb program this morning on the Ovation network that other readers of this site may want to know about. It was shown this morning from 8-9 am EST, and will be shown again this afternoon (1/10/01) from 3-4 EST, and tonight at 8 pm EST. Future showtimes are:
Tuesday, January 16, 2001 – 9:00:00 PM
Wednesday, January 17, 2001 – 1:00:00 AM
Thursday, January 18, 2001 – 1:00:00 PM
It was billed as part of a series called “Masters of Children’s Literature” so I didn’t have very high hopes for it. But it covered all the bases. Lots of interview footage of Tolkien himself, his son Christopher, Alan Lee, Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien’s publisher George Unwin (among the very first to read “The Hobbit” — when he was 10, from Tolkien’s typed manuscript!), and many others. The movie wasn’t mentioned (this program was dated 1998), but it presents Tolkien’s life and all of his work (and not just “The Hobbit,” as I’d suspected) very fully. I’ve been following Tolkien since 1965, and I saw things here I hadn’t seen anywhere else. I particularly treasure one bit of footage: a close-up of Tolkien’s hand as he inscribed one of his books, in Elvish.
