With the NCAA college basketball tournament about to kick off this month in the USA, Harper Collins Canada…
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With the NCAA college basketball tournament about to kick off this month in the USA, Harper Collins Canada has been having their own “March Madness” with famous books pairing off against each other. Right now they are down to their Sweet Sixteen and The Hobbit is still in contention. The match-up this time is against another well-known fantasy book The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe.
Time for TORN fans to weigh in and enter the bracket. So get voting!
James Gurney, author of Dinotopia, the best-selling fantasy series, has just written in his blog about some sketches he did for the folks at Weta. Simon Haupt of Weta’s digital creature department, gave a gift to the team: copies of Gurney’s latest book: Color and Light. Mr. Gurney personally sketched each of the copies. After the jump, you can also find some very nice comments made about the Weta team.
James Gurney is the best-selling author of the Dinotopia series, which was described by the Los Angeles Daily News as “…in the tradition of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and J.R.R. Tolkien… a triumph of the imagination.” His blog, Gurney Journey, is one the five most visited art blogs in the world. His two art books, Imaginative Realism and Color and Light are among amazon’s best-sellers in the category. Mr. Gurney has also painted for the National Geographic Magazine.
Jack over at the Noldor Blogspot has been picking up a few whispers humming around Wellington about the film production, including a set location. Nothing confirmed, but as always us fans love to speculate. Read More
Parliament has passed the government’s new law to clarify the position of contractors within the film industry. MPs have voted 66 to 50 in favour of the law, which is part of the deal brokered with movie producer Warner Brothers earlier this week to keep production of The Hobbit in New Zealand. This was that the Employment Relations Act would be amended to make sure a worker engaged on an independent contract will not be able to go to court and claim employee rights and conditions.
Labour fought the Employment Relations (Film Production Work) Amendment Bill to the last clause, arguing it isn’t necessary and the government is “sticking it to the unions”. During the debate, Labour’s David Parker accused the government of playing a “political game”. “I don’t even think Warner Brothers demanded this. There wasn’t a problem to be fixed, there have been no problems in the film industry for the last five years,” he said. Labour and the Greens are accusing the government of capitulating to a foreign company, abusing parliamentary process and making a mockery of democracy. But ministers say Warner Bros would have pulled out of New Zealand without the commitment to change the law. Read More…
The Los Angeles Times reports today that Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum, founders of Spyglass Entertainment, have signed a non-binding letter of intent to manage MGM, according to familiar sources. They are also discussing a Chief Operating Officer position for veteran Hollywood executive Ken Schapiro.
They write: “Schapiro is partnered with Amir Malin in private media investment fund Qualia Capital, which earlier this year proposed restructuring MGM with a $500 -million cash infusion to keep the studio alive as a scaled-back operation.” The Hobbit production would need such an infusion of cash to get off the ground.
There is more issues to consider before the deal can be approved and MGM’s sixth forebearance date (September 15th) is looming. Read the entire story here.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to our friends in New Zealand today as news comes of a very large earthquake in Christchurch. [Read More]
