Tag: The Lord of the Rings
Production Officially Starts on Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit; Plus Two New Images and the Official Plot
Production has started in Wellington, New Zealand, on The Hobbit, director Peter Jackson’s two $500 million film version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s widely read masterpiece.
The Hobbit is set in Middle-earth 60 years before Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, which Jackson and his team developed for the big screen in the blockbuster trilogy that closed with the Oscar-winning The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Both films, with screenplays by Fran Walsh, Guillermo del Toro, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, will be shot in digital 3D using the Epic camera and latest stereo technology. Filming will go on at Stone Street Studios, Wellington, and on location around New Zealand.
Guillermo del Toro On The Original Cast And That Law Suit
Empire caught up today with Guillermo del Toro and asked him for an update on the current situation with The Hobbit. Many sites have been reporting that his deal to direct is signed and sealed and just waiting for an end to the writers’ strike before it’s announced. But that’s not so, he says.
“I wish it was definite, but it isn’t,” he told us. “It’s still in talks, there are still a lot of ‘T’s to cross and ‘I’s to dot. It’s certainly not certain yet…But, as far as I’m concerned, [if it was definite] I would be packed in ten seconds”.
He’s not worried at this time about the lawsuit that was revealed earlier this week.
Tolkien Estate Sues New Line Cinema
The estate of “Lord of the Rings” creator J.R.R. Tolkien is suing the film studio that released the trilogy based on his books, claiming the company hasn’t paid it a penny from the estimated $6 billion the films have grossed worldwide.
The suit, filed Monday, claims New Line was required to pay 7.5 percent of gross receipts to Tolkien’s estate and other plaintiffs, who contend they only received an upfront payment of $62,500 for the three movies before production began.
The writer’s estate, a British charity dubbed The Tolkien Trust, and original “Lord of the Rings” publisher HarperCollins filed the lawsuit against New Line Cinema in Los Angeles Superior Court. If successful, it could block the long-awaited prequel to the films.
Robert Pini, a spokesman for Time Warner Inc.’s New Line, declined to comment.
