Anyone who’s gotten interested in what inspired Tolkien’s imagination would like this project – it’s an animated version of Wagner’s gigantic opera cycle, The Ring – which also centres on a cursed ring. A potted version, using the main elements of the Nordic myth and accompanied by Wagner’s music without the singing. Intrigued? You should be. Cursed gold, dragons, swords and sorcery….done in 28 minutes. Initially it’ll be aired on BBC/Channel 4TV, I believe, as they’re backing it. The makers, Case TV, hope to make it more widely available as a video eventually. We’ll keep track of this project too…..something to watch while we wait for LOTR.
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After reading the newsbites on Stuff.co.nz I’ve done some digging on the Golden Bay area of New Zealand.
Located on the very northern tip of the South Island, the Golden Bay area is surrounded by small NZ towns such as Collingwood, Puponga and Takaka.
Takaka is the last town of any size as you head towards the north-west corner of the South Island.
Images from Golden Bay
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Recently TOR.net was contacted by Assassin films, who outlined their ideas for a documentary on Tolkien and his works. As I understood it, they saw a need for something that would introduce the man and the book to people who don’t know who Tolkien is or think he just wrote children’s books. Like us, they were getting tired of the somewhat sneering once-over-lightly treatment Tolkien was getting in the main media worldwide. To this end they are planning to spend time at Oxenmoot and are angling for an interview with JRRT’s daughter Priscilla. Another theme they’re pursuing is the way Tolkien has inspired various famous artists and musicians. Glass Hammer are already booked to give them an interview.
Assassin Films are headed by NZer Mark Morgan and director David Perry, who’s from England. They met in LA where both of them worked in films for a number of years.
TOR.net is interested in this project. This is a good time for this documentary to happen, and these seem like the right people to do it.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Steve Elzer
New Line Cinema/LA
(310) 967-6654
NEW LINE CINEMA
SET TO MAKE BOX OFFICE MAGIC
WITH ACQUISITION OF
“DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS: THE MOVIE”
(Los Angeles, August X, 2000) — New Line Cinema has acquired domestic distribution rights to Dungeons and Dragons: The Movie, it was jointly announced today by acquisitions chief Mark Ordesky, President of Fine Line Features, as well as producer/director Courtney Solomon of Sweetpea Entertainment.
Based on the classic role-playing fantasy-adventure game, the film, which is budgeted at $36 million, is executive produced by Joel Silver (The Matrix), and currently in post-production. New Line will release the project by the end of the year.
Dungeons and Dragons is one of the best-known fantasy titles in existence.
The game has generated more than a billion dollars in sales worldwide, including the publication of more than 400 novels. D & D products have been translated into 18 different languages and are still a fast-selling commodity. Leading toy maker Hasboro is in the process of launching a 25th Anniversary line of products.
“For millions of people worldwide, Dungeons and Dragons has been the penultimate fantasy game for more than 25 years, and this film will deliver for die-hard fans as well as those who have never been exposed to this epic world of magic, sorcery and adventure,” Ordesky said. “Courtney has done a phenomenal job translating Dungeons and Dragons on film and we look forward to working with him and Joel Silver as we release this feature into the marketplace.”
Nearly three generations of consumers have grown up on the game, totaling more than 25 million aficionados worldwide. “Beyond the new fans who are entertained by the game today, there is an incredible nostalgia factor to this title and we hope to capture and rekindle their imagination with this acquisition,” Ordesky added.
According to web traffic data, a legion of fans are eager for news about the film. The unofficial website promoting the project, DNDMOVIE.COM, has received more than 1.5 million hits since launching last November, and the site continues to generate unusual levels of press and consumer interest.
In addition, members of the cast are already supporting the film as they appear this weekend in Milwaukee at Gen Con, the country’s largest convention of D & D devotees. At the convention, it is expected that 50,000 fans will have the opportunity to get a first-look at teaser promotional footage from the film.
New Line will begin developing a marketing, distribution and publicity campaign immediately to support a year-end launch. “With New Line’s great track record releasing genre films, and their experience with The Lord of the Rings, I think they are the perfect match for Dungeons and Dragons,” said producer/director Courtney Solomon.
Added Rolf Mittweg, Co-Chairman of Worldwide Marketing: “Like Mortal Kombat and other fantasy/adventure franchises, this is the kind of programming that New Line has traditionally excelled with.”
In the film, which stars Jeremy Irons, Thora Birch (American Beauty), Marlon Wayans (Scary Movie) Justin Whalin (“The New Adventures of Lois and Clark”) and Richard O’Brien (Rocky Horror Picture Show) among others, a rag tag group of adventurers seek to foil the plans of an evil wizard.
In addition to landing domestic distribution rights, New Line has secured an option to make a potential prequel and sequel, as well as other ancillary platforms including cable, pay and network television.
Along with Ordesky, New Line’s Vice President of Acquisitions Arianna Bocco was responsible for landing the rights to the project. New Line’s Senior Vice President of Business Affairs Suzanne Rosencrans negotiated the agreement on behalf of the studio. Solomon is represented by attorney Sheri Jeffrey as well as Joe Gatta and David Gersh at the Gersh Agency. At Silver Pictures, the project was brought in and overseen by Steve Richards.
Solomon is a first-time filmmaker who began developing the concept for Dungeons and Dragons: The Movie while still in high school. A native of Toronto, Canada, he optioned the film rights to the project from TSR, Inc. when he was 21 years-old. Thereafter he secured the interest of Hong Kong-based financier Allan Zeman, who funded the project.
Solomon currently has several other projects in development, including a film adaptation of the best-selling comic book “Gen 13” as well as The Bell Witch, The Herald, and Puppetland, a computer generated live-action feature.
Joel Silver is one of the most successful producers in the motion picture industry, with the combined gross of his films tallying more than $3 billion.
With the success of The Matrix, 14 of Silver’s films have earned worldwide box-office totals over $100 million. The others are the Lethal Weapon series I-IV, Die Hard and Die Hard 2: Die Harder, Predator, Commando, 48 Hours, The Last Boy Scout, Demolition Man, Conspiracy Theory, and Executive Decision.
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Kimi was lucky enough to hear this interview, and she was good enough to send us a report:
“Last Friday morning (11 August) Kim Hill of Radio New Zealand interviewed Humphrey Carpenter, the biographer of J.R.R. Tolkien. The interview was on the subject of Humphrey Carpenter’s latest work, a biography of playwright Dennis Potter, but towards the end of the interview Ms Hill asked Carpenter what he thought Tolkien’s reaction would have been to “The Lord of the Rings” being filmed.
Carpenter’s response was interesting. He said that he had known JRRT fairly briefly (unlike Potter, whom he never met), and that he (Carpenter) had staged a production of “The Hobbit”. JRRT’s reaction to this production was that he considered his works to be unstageable; he simply didn’t feel that they could be successfully translated to a dramatic form. Although he had sold the film rights long before this took place, he had no real expectation that “The Lord of the Rings” could be successfully filmed.
Carpenter himself made the rather startling remark that he thinks that “The Lord of the Rings” is unfilmable. He certainly startled Kim Hill, who laughed and said as if reading a headline, “Humprey Carpenter says ‘Lord of the Rings’ unfilmable!”. He said that, while Volumes I and II are very good, he feels that Volume III is rather wordy and has language that is almost biblical. One got the impression that, while Humphrey Carpenter considers “The Lord of the Rings” a very good book, he doesn’t necessarily consider it one of the great works of the 20th century. This is, however, only my impression of a rather brief and “off-topic” portion of the interview. And he did say that he intends to go to the films.”
Thanks for that, Kimi!
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More thoughts have come in about the wizard-on-a-spike picture
SB was at the set on consecutive days and sheds some light:
“I just want to offer my opinion on the wizard on a spike. Shoulda done this earlier, I know. The same actor who was the wizard on the spike (or a good look-alike) was filming a scene the very next day. How do I know? Because I saw them filming at the Wingate set the next day. What were they filming? In the two hours I was there, it was a crane shot taken from 30 feet or so in the air, looking down on that same wizard on a white horse leading eight or so individuals. I noticed a Gimli dummy on the back of someone, and someone who looked like Aragorn (could be a double). This was all beside the big wheel. This leads me to believe that it *was* Gandalf, especially as he spoke some inaudible lines that day.
Why he was on the spike? Who knows. The security guards said that the Evening Post (stuff.co.nz) were very wrong, however. One more thing… on the day after the spike day, the security guard told me that they were using all doubles that day, and the real action was up the road at the river set, where all the stars where. I don’t know if he was trying to get me to bugger off, but it certainly seems that most of the main characters have doubles.”
A few people thought it was Saruman, such as AW:
“I think that it is pretty clear what the impaled wizard was. It was Saruman’s demise(presumably by the actions of Wormtongue). I think that the destruction in the Shire will be completly omitted in the movies. It would be anti-climactic in a film(after the spectacular fall of Sauron) and really is of little relevence to the central story. As for the issue of no blood, remember how Saruman died in the books, it was fairly bloodless…”
Another good idea from MT:
“Just read your article… wanted to comment on the bit regarding the blood. The Wheel is rotating in water, thus its likely it would not be bloody… especially if the wizard (or whomever) died and was sloshing around there a bit before someone found him. Perhaps Saruman was let go, and stumbled on one of his own machines. After he was under water awhile, someone discovered it and the machine was rotated…bringing the unbloody body up out of the water.”
I kind of like this idea – it’s nifty and gets round the R13 classification (no scenes with oodles of gore). I still think he’d be pretty pinkish-looking though – blood doesn’t rinse off as easy as you could wish. Not if you’re wearing white.
Olorin said:
“… Nor can it be Sauron showing Denethor his doom (although that would be a cool way to make him even more suicidal), as he has no Minas Tirith uniform on, & I doubt that if they stripped him of it they would have given him some white robes in return. My guess, therefore, is that it might be a part of a flash through Mordor/Lugburz or Isengard/Orthanc, showing Sauron/Saruman torturing an old man. Unless Gandalfs been having nightmares after the fight with the Balrog…”
I’m really impressed with the imagination people have brought to bear on this, which is remaining such an intriguing problem. Bending the rules, playing with ideas….it makes us storytellers in our own right.
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