As a thank you gesture to Wellington’s stadium-goers, the latest Lord of the Rings trailer will screen for the first time in New Zealand at the WestpacTrust Stadium during halftime of the KENO Test match [More] Thanks to Earendil the Mariner for the link.
Category: Original TORn
Fiver writes in: “Just thought you may like to know that on Nov 23 and 24 there is a pop culture expo in Wellington and special fx people from Weta will be there. According to the brochure, this is when they will launch series four of the LOTR collectibles, including the Nazgul on a horse.”
Entwife caught this long and apparently recent interview in the magazine Fangoria. Here is her report on that interview. [More]
Entwife wrote to tell us about an interview with PJ in thelatest Fangoria magazine!
“Wanted to tell you that I was browsing in Barnes and Noble yesterday and came across an apparently exclusive (and recent) interview with PJ in the October ’02 “Fangoria” magazine. Now, I am NOT a fan of that magazine, and was not about to buy it (I have 3 small kids), but I read the article in the store and it was a good one. It was fairly substantial– about 4 pages long–and had some interesting quotes from Jackson, including his sense that TTT will probably not be an Oscar favorite like FOTR (too dark, and doesn’t have a clear beginnning and end). Although he insisted that he didn’t want to speculate about Oscars, he did say he thinks that ROTK may have a better chance, since he says it’s much more triumphant, and moves from one climactic event to another (or words to that effect.) He also said that TTT is down around 3 hours now (from 4 originally) and that he felt that 3 hours is about the limit for a movie to be seen in a theater. (He reiterated that the studio did not put pressure on him to get it (or FOTR) down to 2 or 2 1/2. )
He also said that this year’s work on TTT has been more relaxed and fun (in some ways ) compared to last year’s work on FOTR, since of course the b.o. was so wonderful. The pressure to “not kill New Line” is off, though he said that since the movie was so well received that they all did feel a keener artistic challenge, to not let people down artistically with the next ones. He ‘s glad the movies were all shot before FOTR came out, b/c they might have wanted to do “more of the same” after FOTR’s success, while instead TTT has a very different feel– darker, and less fantastical, since it’s primarily concerned with the world of men , while FOTR took us to Hobbiton, Rivendell, Moria, and Lothlorien. But he thinks that a different feel is probably a ggod thing.
He talked a little about the psychological mind-games played by Gollum with Frodo and Sam and said that while Tolkien hinted at it, they’ve taken it further. Some other interesting tidbits: Helm’s Deep was the first miniature they made back in ’97, and they’re finishing work filming it now, so it’s been 5 years they’ve used it. Also, he said that while he might want to do a King Kong remake in a few years, he and Fran want to do 1 or 2 small movies first.
Thanks to Entwife for that report!
Local elf Figwit is back in NZ and working to save the planet. And Kiwis now have a local supplier for LOTR swords and for the LOTR Locations Guidebook. [More]
Figwit news: He’s doing his bit to save the planet. [More]
Meanwhile another diehard LOTR fan from NZ is Ian Brodie, writer of the LOTR Guidebook. He also runs the NZ Fighter Pilots Museum which is proud to announce that they are now the sole New Zealand suppliers of the United Cutlery Lord of the Rings swords. This now means that New Zealanders can purchase these beautiful reproductions from a store in New Zealand. More information on the guidebook and the swords can be found here]