Also in Wednesday morning's new round-up: In the run-up to the election, a major cable company is offering its customers a free viewing of an anti-Obama doc; Details on Peter Jackson's The Hobbit and a book deal for a Spider-Man creator.
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Peter Jackson took to the interwebs to usher in Tolkien Week - currently underway, natch - announcing a new trailer for December's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey that will drop Wednesday the 19th. (Mark your calendars, wizards!) And for good measure, USA Today debuted a new batch of exclusive Hobbit pics for your viewing pleasure. Gollum is ready for his close-up.
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That sound you hear is the cheering of hairy-footed Tolkien addicts everywhere. At 11:30 a.m. Monday morning, the lord of The Lord of the Rings franchise Peter Jackson confirmed via his Facebook page that The Hobbit would indeed be a trilogy.
"It is only at the end of a shoot that you finally get the chance to sit down and have a look at the film you have made," Jackson wrote. "Recently Fran [Walsh], Phil [Boyens] and I did just this when we watched for the first time an early cut of the first movie — and a large chunk of the second. We were really pleased with the way the story was coming together, in particular, the strength of the characters and the cast who have brought them to life. All of which gave rise to a simple question: do we take this chance to tell more of the tale? And the answer from our perspective as the filmmakers, and as fans, was an unreserved ‘yes.'" more »
Also in Wednesday morning's round-up of news briefs, Jon Favreau adds a Martin Scorsese-project to his schedule. European festivals in San Sebastian and Deauville release details about their upcoming events and Leonard DiCaprio is set to back a car-maker.
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Hobbit director Peter Jackson is nothing if not a man of the people, so when he took to San Diego's Comic-Con earlier this month to present footage to 6,000+ lucky fans shortly after wrapping, he recorded a video diary to share with the rest of the Lord of the Rings faithful. Watch as Jackson navigates the perils of press junkets and Hall H's screaming fans, filming on his trusty iPhone along the way! Or, y'know... skip ahead a few minutes to fantastic 10+ minutes of behind-the-scenes peeks from the set of The Hobbit.
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After bringing 12 minutes of The Hobbit to Comic-Con — where Peter Jackson purposefully did not present footage in the 48 frames per second/3-D presentation that perplexed audiences at CinemaCon — the Lord of the Rings filmmaker spoke further about his desire to explore even more ground in the fantasy universe created by J.R.R. Tolkien. One possibility may be a third Hobbit film culled from Tolkien’s expansive LOTR notes and appendices, though Jackson admitted that the author’s posthumously published Silmarillion might present more of a challenge.
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In Friday morning's round-up of news briefs, The Amazing Spider-Man drums up solid numbers at the box office, while Peter Jackson's latest concludes shooting. Several of this weekend's new specialty releases are profiled; AMC ticket takers are taking the chain to court. And Valley Girl is getting a re-do.
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Peter Jackson is currently experiencing the direct opposite of the CinemaCon Oscar Hype phenomenon explored here last week, with his Hobbit — shot at the adventurous rate of 48 frames per second — drawing more than a few skeptics out of the geek woodwork. This calls for damage control.
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Unveiling 10 minutes of Hobbit footage in 3-D at the revolutionary frame rate of 48 frames per second (vs. the standard 24 fps), as Warner Bros. did Tuesday at CinemaCon, should have been the first big buzz moment for Peter Jackson's return to Middle Earth. The immediate reaction to the presentation, however, was anything but good news for the studio or for proponents of the kind of cutting-edge high frame rate cinema technology Jackson and folks like James Cameron and Douglas Trumbull have been championing as the future of film. Instead, it left members of the blogger corps. calling it "jarring," "non-cinematic," and "like a made for television BBC movie," predicting that audiences will be split in embracing the brave new advance.
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Tragic news from the New Orleans set of G.I. Joe: Retaliation, where a crew member suffered fatal injuries after an accident while breaking down the set. Filming closed earlier this week under director Jon M. Chu, who had already Tweeted his departure from the set days before the incident occurred. The tragedy marks the latest in a string of on-set accidents on big budget studio productions including The Expendables 2 and The Hobbit.
Empire caught up with Flight of the Conchords comedian Bret McKenzie, who'd recently reprised his Lord of the Rings character in The Hobbit as a musical elf, now named Lindir. "This time, if I make the edit, I'll speak in Elvish. But I don't sing. They haven't asked me to do the theme song yet! Maybe this time it's me and Annie Lennox." More importantly, he revealed that Gandalf himself is a Conchords enthusiast. "Ian McKellen, it turns out, is a big fan of Flight Of The Conchords. He and I had a good time on set, coming up with ideas for Hobbit: The Musical. We're still developing it..." Wizards -- they're just like us! [Empire]
Empire Magazine gathered ex-Hobbit pals Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry (otherwise known as Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, and Dominic Monaghan) for a reunion photo shoot to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of The Fellowship of the Ring, in the December issue. It'll include Viggo Mortensen's behind the scenes photos, concept art, and stories from the set, and to whet your appetite Empire's released a brief "trailer" from its recent Hobbit cast reunion.
At last night's premiere of Real Steel, co-star Evangeline Lilly -- fresh from shooting The Hobbit in New Zealand, ZOMG -- caught up with Access Hollywood for an unusually geeky Access Hollywood chat, during which she dropped a few lines in Elvish. So hot, right LOTRers? See if you can devise plot hints from the Elf-speak dialogue she trilled, after the jump.
A quick update from Austin, where the Fantastic Debates took place at midnight pitting filmmakers, actors, and astrophysicists against each other in spoken debates before pounding it out in the boxing ring: If you were betting on Elijah Wood to reign victorious over Lord of the Rings buddy Dominic Monaghan (or in Hobbit terms, Frodo vs. Merry, who were debating the awesomeness of another fantasy nerd obsession, World of Warcraft), you'd have lost.
Fantastic Fest's annual Fantastic Debates pit filmmakers, critics, and celebrities against each other in a two-part battle that begins with a podium debate and ends with the ultimate showdown in the boxing ring. This year's Debates, held Saturday night in Austin, Texas, will get even more fantastic than usual as Elijah Wood and Lord of the Rings pal Dominic Monaghan duke it out with some Hobbit vs. Hobbit fisticuffs. Watch their challenge videos after the jump!
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