The Lord Of The Rings News

Peter Jackson is reuniting with a Lord of the Rings star for new movie Mortal Engines

April 17, 2017

Source: http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a826107/peter-jackson-lord-of-the-rings-reunion-hugo-weaving-new-movie-mortal-engines/

Peter Jackson is reuniting with a Lord of the Rings actor for his next movie, Mortal Engines.
The Oscar-winning director is in line to adapt Philip Reeve’s dystopian novels for a series of films.
Set in a future where cities roam the globe on huge wheels destroying towns for resources, things take a mysterious turn when Tom Natsworthy (Misfits star Robert Sheehan) has an unexpected encounter with a woman from the Outlands.
Variety has now confirmed that Hugo Weaving – who played Elrond in the Lord of the Rings trilogy – will join the project in an as yet unknown role.

Mortal Engines isn’t the first time Jackson has reunited with the actor since the original JRR Tolkien trilogy.
Weaving appeared in all three LOTR movies, as well as the first and third films in The Hobbit trilogy.
While Jackson won’t be sitting in the director’s chair for Mortal Engines, he will serve as writer and producer on the project, with directorial duties going to Christian Rivers in his first large-scale Hollywood production.

Oscar-winner Rivers previously served as a visual effects supervisor on both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
Production should begin in New Zealand this spring, and the film is set to debut on December 14, 2018.
Until then, why not relive our favourite Elrond movie moment?

Things You Didn’t Know About the Making of ‘Lord of the Rings’, Part Two

December 19, 2016

Source: http://variety.com/2016/film/news/lord-of-the-rings-making-of-backstory-business-1201936646/

It almost wasn’t Jackson: Jackson thought one way to handle the trilogy would be to make “The Hobbit,” the prequel to the trilogy, first, and then make two films of the next three books. But rights issues meant that Saul Zaentz could only license “Lord of the Rings” to Harvey Weinstein, and not “The Hobbit.” When production costs started to rise, Harvey Weinstein tried to persuade Jackson to make a single “Lord of the Rings” film. Weinstein gave Jackson an ultimatum: “We had to either agree to do it or walk away,” Jackson recalled, “He already had John Madden lined up to direct, and Hossein Amini to write the script.”

But nobody was interested: Jackson returned to New Zealand to start working on a 35 minute “making of the making of” sample footage video, which would be shown to studios that expressed interest. But no major studios got the chance to see the footage — they all turned Jackson down. It came down to appointments with Polygram — the British independent studio whose Working Title label made “Four Weddings and a Funeral” — and New Line, on the same day Jackson was scheduled to fly back to New Zealand. New Line came through, after Weinstein negotiated an expensive buyout including an executive producer credit.

A whole new scale: It was a production of unprecedented scope: no filmmaker had ever made three films back to back before, or had as large a cast of crew and extras, or made every single prop from scratch. A production team of over 2,400 and 26,000 extras worked on the films for five years. The crew built 64 miniature sets, some so detailed that the larger ones were known as “bigatures.” Jackson decided that every single item in Middle-earth should be made from scratch. “I had to create the most believable world I could. The decision was to make it feel very historical, with the levels of detail creating the illusion that the viewers were immersing themselves in a real world,” said Jackson.

The search for Gandalf: New Line encouraged Jackson to cast Sean Connery as Gandalf, and though Jackson, a fan of Connery’s agreed, Connery turned them down. Ian McKellen was the next choice for the role of the wise wizard. But McKellan had committed to appear in “X-Men.” Bob Shaye ran into him at a London restaurant and told him “I was sorry to hear he was busy, because we had really wanted him. I went back to my table, and then a few minutes later, I decided to go back and ask, ‘Just for the record, what is the scheduling conflict?’ He said, ’Well, you’re starting ’Lord of the Rings’ three days before I finish ’X-Men.’ We did fix it of course, and that’s how he got in the movie.”

Not the right fit for Aragorn : The actor cast for the role of Aragorn, Stuart Townsend, was replaced after the first film was already three or four weeks into shooting. He was in nearly every scene, and they all needed to be re-shot. Producers felt the actor needed a little more gravitas, and decided to replace Townsend with Viggo Mortensen. “We had five days in which to find and cast the right person, make the deal and get him on a plane for New Zealand — for 15 months!” said executive producer Mark Ordesky. Mortensen, who is 14 years older than Townsend, seemed born to shoulder the role of the mysterious human warrior — it was even said he was living in the forest in Aragorn’s mud-stained clothes.

Things You Didn’t Know About the Making of ‘Lord of the Rings’, Part One

December 19, 2016

Source: http://variety.com/2016/film/news/lord-of-the-rings-making-of-backstory-business-1201936646/

When “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” opened on Dec. 19, 2001, it was the culmination of one of the most audacious and successful bets ever made in the movie business. The three films in the series were shot back to back and grossed $2.9 billion dollars — not bad for a trilogy that very nearly didn’t get made.
Why did it take so long after the J.R.R. Tolkien books were published to see a “Lord of the Rings” film? And how did Peter Jackson, who wasn’t a well-known director at the time, end up directing all three? Here are some of the steps it took to put “Lord of the Rings” onscreen.

Hippies helped the Hobbits: The books were published starting in 1954 in England, but didn’t become popular in the U.S. until the mid-1960s, at the height of the Vietnam War, when war protesters and back-to-the-earth hippies ruled the cultural airwaves. The books became counter-cultural touchstones thanks to their themes of environmental protection and battles against forces of war and corruption.

Tolkien was flattered by the success and amazed by the profits. But he was born in 1892, and couldn’t get his head around fans whose idea of a great trip was to ingest “The Lord of the Rings” and LSD simultaneously. Plus, over-enthusiastic readers were invading his privacy, gawking at his house and calling him at all hours with obscure questions.The influence grew: Themes from the book were reflected in music by groups such as Led Zeppelin with their song “Ramble On,” and writers including Clive Barker and Stephen King were strongly influenced by Tolkien. George Lucas has often cited the books as an important influence on “Star Wars.”An animated attempt: After “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” producer Saul Zaentz acquired rights to the books, animator Ralph Bakshi made a feature-length animated film, “J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.” But until the mid-1990s, when digital special effects started to become more widespread, it was thought the vast mythological universe of elves, Hobbits, wizards and monsters would be too daunting and expensive to reproduce on film. Filmmakers including George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and John Boorman considered trying to adapt the books but ultimately didn’t follow through.

Art Competition to celebrate 60 years of Lord of the Rings

September 27, 2015

The Return of the King was first published on October 20, 1955 and has become a real treasure of English Literature of the XX century. The Lord of the Rings has been translated into over 50 languages and estimates put sales at over 150 million copies worldwide.

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the publication of The Return of the King by J.R.R.Tolkien OpenHand OpenSpace and Battle Library are working together to bring you free art workshops.

The free art workshops are for all ages and will be led by Kate Lockhart on:

October 3, from 2pm to 4pm

As part of OpenHand OpenSpace’s The Big Draw event, create and explore the imaginary world of Tolkien books. You can also explore the architecture of a Hobbit’s house by helping to build one.

OpenHand OpenSpace (OHOS) provides artist’s studios and gallery space for current art exhibitions at The Keep in Reading.

October 6, from 5pm to 6:30pm

Join OHOS artist Kate Lockhart at Battle Library to make mixed media artwork of fantasy inspired by The Lord of the Rings.

There are 3 categories:

12 and Under: Fantasy Art Competition – use your imagination to draw, paint and collage – fantastic beasts, mythical creatures or fantastical places! To fit an A4 page.

13 – 18yrs: Art inspired by Lord of the Rings. We would like you to depict characters, places and scenes from Lord of the Rings. Any medium – drawing, painting, textiles, mixed media. Must be no more than A3 size.

Adults (19 and over): As above.

Winning entries will be displayed at Battle Library for 4 weeks.

All entries must be handed in to Battle Library by Saturday 17th October at 4pm.

Lord of the Rings’ Minas Tirith City Will be Built in the UK (If £1.85 Billion Can be Raised…)

August 15, 2015

Source: http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/

It’s the focus of the Lord of the Rings’ dramatic final battle, a towering white city carved into the side of a mountain. But Minas Tirith need not remain only in the realm of fiction, provided fantasy crowdfunders can cough up a measly, oh, say £1.85 BILLION.

A team of architects in the UK, lead by Jonathan Wilson, have established an IndieGoGo campaign which aims to raise the incredible sum in order to build a complete replica of the Tolkien town here in the UK, as it appears in the cinematic trilogy.

“We are an ambitious team of architects and structural engineers who are passionate about creating a beautiful, inspirational and fully-functioning replica of Peter Jackson’s depiction of Minas Tirith, as seen in his Lord of the Rings films,” Wilson explains on the IndieGoGo page.

“We believe that, in realizing Minas Tirith, we can create not only the most remarkable tourist attraction on the planet, but also a wonderfully unique place to live and work.”

Yep – you could have your very own Hobbit hole in Minas Tirith. Where exactly the town would be, should the campaign meet its insane goal, remains to be seen, but the team have stated that they are scouting out a number of locations in the south of England. Should the funding target be somehow met, the team hope to have Minas Tirith fully functioning by 2023, a timeframe that sounds even more outlandish than the funding target itself.

So, does it stand a chance? Of course not. With 47 days to go, the project has raised just over £49,500. Which, considering all the money is returned to backers if the project fails, is probably made almost entirely of joke pledges. Still, one can only dream. Still, feel free to send some money by way of the source – as elf lady Galadriel once said, “Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.”

Archive News