Just added this report from another New Zealand newspaper. So this report now has two separate New Zealand Newspaper reports on LORD OF THE RINGS! Here ya go.... ain't this sheeeeet excitin'?
FYI - some LotR news from http://www.newsroom.co.nz/stories/HL9808/S00194.htm, an on-line NZ news service.
If you use it, please call me Rimbaud
Middle Earth Comes To New Zealand
Tuesday, 25 August 1998, 11:14 am
Staff Reporter: Greg Meylan
"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them"
Next year Middle Earth's fantastic landscape and peoples, Gandalf, Frodo Baggins, the Dark Riders and all, will be transposed onto our own countryside in a $260 million film by New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson.
Jackson told National Radio his morning that after 18 months of negotiation with the US film company Newline Cinema he had the $260 million contract to make J.R.R. Tolkien's classic trilogy Lord Of The Rings into three films.
Jackson says he has been thinking about filming the book for almost four years and that it will be easily his biggest project to date.
He says turning the book, voted the most popular of the century in a worldwide readers survey, into a film is daunting but exciting with the excitement slightly outweighing the terror.
He says New Zealand is an ideal place to make the film and various parts of New Zealand will be used during the film.
"Anyone that has read Lord of the Rungs will realise that Tolkien was very obsessive about the landscapes and he paints an incredibly vivid picture that you read and you absorb. You have a very definite sense in your mind about what his world of Middle Earth was like and New Zealand just fits this perfectly."
He estimates over $200 million will enter the New Zealand economy over the course of the filming in New Zealand.
All three books will be filmed over 12 months and the first film, The Fellowship Of The Ring, is expected to be released around Christmas 2000 with the next two films of the trilogy following at roughly four month intervals.
He says making all three at once is not the usual way to make a trilogy and that it took a lot of negotiating to convince the film's backers to allow them to be made together.
Jackson says he wanted to do it this way to ensure that all of the films got made. A cartoon version of the book was made in the 1970s but only ever got as far as telling half the story.
The 12 month filming period is about five times longer than it takes to shoot most films and it will be the biggest film ever made in New Zealand.
There will be over 60 speaking roles and thousands of extras, no one has yet been cast but Jackson says they are looking at some famous people for cameo roles and to play some of the older people of Middle Earth.
Casting is expected to be completed by Christmas this year.
The Hobbits, described by Tolkien as between three feet six inches and four feet tall, will be played by full sized people and then shrunk by computer.
Jackson says the talent is in New Zealand in abundance to make the film and that the Government could also help.
"This project more than any other we need the Government to really help us to make this a great experience because if the Americans have a good time making this film here they are going to come back and the Government are going to be very instrumental in smoothing the way for us."
Just to get readers in the mood here is the verse of the rings.
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
Here is a New Zealand newspaper story that should fill in some more information on the Peter Jackson/Lord of the Rings lead story. NOTE that these stories from down under quote a budget double that reported in the US media. These figures represent what $130 million looks like in New Zealand money. Of course, not knowing what a Big Mac costs in New Zealand, or how much the average bloke is paid in an hour... well I don't know how far $130 american millions go in New Zealand. I presume it's enough...
Hi Harry and fellow geeks,
I'm from Wellington, New Zealand, and I was very excited to see this article as the headline on our city's main newspaper (The Evening Post) this evening. Although much of the info was covered in your previous article, some of it is more precise, and there issome extra stuff. Enjoy!
Wellington film director Peter Jackson is to make a $264 million trilogy based on J R R Tolkien's fantasy classic Lord Of The Rings. The project, believed to be the biggest cinema production ever undertaken in the Southern Hemisphere, was announced today.
Half of the filming for the trilogy will be in Wellington. The film will require 15,000 extras and is expected to pump $200 million into the New Zealand economy, co-producer Tim Sanders said. Jackson said he did not believe the films could be made in the US because the project would be too expensive.
"It's only affordable because of New Zealand expertise and skills," said Jackson, whose previous films include the Oscar-nominated Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners, made in New Zealand with Hollywood money.
Mr Sanders said the financial spinoffs for Wellington would be enormous. "We will be offering employment for hundreds of people, we'll be utilising service industries and facilities here in Wellington. "We will be accommodating people from out of town, flying them, renting cars, feeding them, paying them wages that they will spend here. And by and large, doing that in the confines of Peter's studio complex. So we will be out of sight but contributing to the economy." "I can't think of anything this big that has been done outside of the UK or Hollywood."
Mr Sanders said the production headquarters would be based at Jackson's new Stone St complex and his Camperdown studio complex, both in Miramar. Jackson said the films would be shot half in the studio and half on location. Filming would be done entirely within New Zealand, he said. Casting would be done later this year and at least 50 of the 65 speaking roles in the cast, and almost all of the film crew, would be New Zealanders.
Jackson said the three films would be made for US company New Line Cinema. They would be co-written and co-produced with partner Fran Walsh, under his Wingnut Films banner. Executive producer would be Saul Zaentz, whose films include The English Patient, Amadeus and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Jackson said the project was "like the holy grail of cinema".
"It's a time when the technology now allows us to tell this story. "This is one of the most widely loved books of all time, so it is quite daunting," Jackson said. "The only thing I can do is make the version of the Lord Of The Rings I would like to see. I'm a huge admirer of the books and think it could make a great sequence of movies. Somewhere over the next two years, I've got to find those great movies and shoot them."
Principal photography would take about a year, with 18 months set aside for post-production, he said. Staff at Miramar-based Weta Digital special effects firm had already been working for a year, developing the technology for the many special effects the film would require to bring the fantasy world of Middle Earth to life.
"Something I'm hoping to achieve is, rather than have the film look like we went out in New Zealand and shot on location, is that it looks we went out to Middle Earth and shot on location. "I want to give it a sense of reality, so it doesn't look like a fantasy picture postcard, but a real place that has a magic and a special quality to it."
The first of the three films, The Fellowship Of The Ring, is due to be released at Christmas time in 2000. The sequels, The Two Towers and The Return Of The King, would be released either four or six months apart.
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Agent Apathy
