Ok all you Tolkein readers (me too) here comes two pieces of information. The first came from one of them Grey Council types that analyzes and confers about info. It was more or less a "here's what I know, what do you know in addition" sorta letter. And the other is down below. Read what you will, one thing is absolutely for certain! WE DON'T KNOW CRAP ABOUT THIS PROJECT!!! I can just see ol Peter Jackson smiling, same with Saul. I had heard that the project would begin in December... Well, It's December, let's start hearing some news on it! Folks on this first letter, there are some serious issues brought up, like the bit dealing with Lucas and Speilberg. Take note these are RUMORS, not facts. If you have facts about this stuff, divulge...Divulge.... DIVULGE... Fandom wants to know!!!
Recently I heard from a makup artist who said he is gearing up to work on The Hobbit down there in New Zealand. My theory is that Jackson and Zaentz are gonna do The Hobbit first and then see if the other films are worth doing, because it's sure that they are developing the latter. I still have heard nothing about whether or not this will be a trilogy or what. Anyway, I got this from a New Zealander who got the following info from his local paper:
"Just thought you would want to know that Saul Zaentz is using his recent fame from The English Patient to get LOR made into a movie (he still owns the rights from the Bakshi films).
Sam BTW will now be female.
I am unfortunately not making any of this up. I read about it in my local paper. It seems the Tolkien family is madly fighting the project.
However Lucas/Spielburg are trying to buy the rights to see that the movies are never made, or if made are done with Christopher Tolkien's help."
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. Got any spies at Lucasfilm or Dreamworks/Amblin who could confirm or deny that? I'd love to know.
Then there is this letter from that boy who wants a Red Ryder repeating BB rifle for Christmas. Hopefully, he won't shoot out his eyes, cause it's important for him to see the next updates about THE HOBBIT/LORD OF THE RINGS. Read on. Very interesting...
Hi from New Zealand, wish this was more substantial but oh well... All week a local (usually pretty unremarkable) local movie-related TV show called "Cin. City" had been hyping a visit to the WETA effects house for Friday's show. Last night it screened and it was something of a let down..knew it was a bad sign when they sent their annoying I'm-a-mindless-bimbo-and-pround-of-it presenter along for the task. A WETA guy showed her a few costumes & puppets from "The Frighteners", including a large fat cupid thing that didnt make the final cut..then moved on to show off a few outfits created for the Hercules TV show..nothing amazing, although behind the cupid on a shelf were alot of little Dinosaur sculptures (think I recall these mentioned as being work for the stalled King Kong on AICN before)..then we learned that there's going to be another part to the report next week-the intrepid reporter gets made up in some costume (*yawn*)..anyway the interesting part occured when we saw a snippet of her acting like an idiot, in make-up from next week's show-she came running out from behind a large green sculpture in the middle of the floor. The Scuplture was a very classic looking Dragon upper torso/head..a bit taller than a man. In fact it looks more like a *Wyvern* (stands upright like a man, has wings for arms) from mythology (or Dungeons & Dragons ), and looked pretty cool. I guess it could easily have been something from Hercules but looked a different style (Im not a big Hercules fan so wouldnt know for sure)...may or may not be connected to the Tolkein project.
If only I had video capture gear..
