The official site has announced the specific features on the 4-disc package to be released in November. In addition to over 40 minutes of new footage, discs 3 & 4 are to be jam-packed with design/photo galleries, an interactive map guide to shooting locations, an up-close look at Massive, and much, much more! [View the full list]

Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, and the stars of the $125 million Pirates of the Caribbean film have joined about 1,500 guests at Disneyland for its first ever movie screening. [More]

If you live in Denmark you'll be especially interested in this one from Ringer Kastenskov:

Just wanted to tell you that on Friday Viggo Mortensen opened an exhibition of his photographs at Brandts Klædefabrik - the National Danish Museum of Photography - in Odense, Denmark. And on Tuesday he will attend a booksigning at a local bookstore in Aarhus, likewise in Denmark. [More]

For those of you unable to fly to Denmark at a minute's notice, there is an interview with Viggo and some photos from the exhibit here and here.

The RoTK teaser poster of Aragorn finally debuted a couple of days ago. However, if you've been looking for a version untainted by text and other scribble, head to the NZ Herald. [More]

German LoTR fan Harry Ho recently took a trip to NZ and took a bunch of photos that popped up on the TORC messageboards. You can check out the whole bunch here, but we've Scrapbooked a set picture from Stone Street and a couple of spooky shots of the location of the Paths of the Dead. [More] Minor Spoilers

Tolkien enthusiast Thomas Magnum was so keen to be involved in Lord of the Rings that he wrote this open letter to Dan Hennah and Richard Taylor at WETA. Thanks to Ringer Spy The Archer for the clipping! [More]

It's slow on the LoTR news front this weekend, but the Age has this thoughtful article about the enduring popularity of some authors (including Tolkien) and the hype they had to live through in their own lifetimes. [More]

BBC Newsaround is running a poll on what people's favourite thing is. One of the options is Lord of the Rings. Another is Harry Potter - but I think I'm drawn to the chocolate option. Thanks to Ringer Spy Frodo's Girl13 for spotting this one. [More]

And someone at the BBC seems to know at least a little bit of Middle-earth history. This article about the new Teaser Poster also touches on the history of Andúril. Very cool. [More]

The One Ring. The most powerful of the Rings of Power, forged by Sauron in Orodruin with one charge: to dominate all others. The Dark Lord let much of his original power pass into the Ring and with it he secured the foundations of the Dark Tower and subjugated the possessors of the nine rings to his will. It served as a focus for Saurons power, and yet, by infusing the One Ring with the bulk of his power, he had also devised a way for his enemies to destroy him.[More]

The official New Line Cinema Shop has posted the 'Return of the King' teaser poster for sale! [More]

HannColl writes: ToysRUs.com has a listing of some RotK action figures! [More]

Robert writes: I conducted a very interesting interview with the ambassador of New Zealand in Italy, Peter Bennett. We chatted about the importance of the LOTR movies to increase the popularity of this great country and how it changed the local cinematographic industry. Bennett had the chance to visit the Weta offices a year ago and he talks about this experience. [More]

The Z Review has a brief update on Orlando Bloom's (Legolas) next film, 'The Remains of the Piano': "Eric Idle's Merchant Ivory spoof The Remains of the Piano will film at Victoria BC starting on the 18th August, no word on where exactly it will film , if anyone hears then do get in touch! It is thought that the movie will also film in the UK."

WeeTanya writes: The official Christopher Lee (Saruman) website just posted that he was in an episode of "This is Your Life", and discussed a film that he's acting in. [More]

The Official Site has finally unleashed the RoTK Teaser Poster. Very reminiscent of the Frodo teaser poster for FoTR, it features Aragorn holding Anduril. There's also a fantastic desktop version for download. [More] TORn has also mirrored the images below.

[Desktop] [Poster]
A few of you will probably look at the inscription on Andúril from the Teaser Poster and wonder what it says - and maybe wonder if it's the same as the inscription on Narsil. [More] Updated!

The official New Line Cinema Shop has posted the 'Return of the King' teaser poster for sale! [More]

Brian writes: Space: The Imagination Spacey Awards and two awards have just been given to TTT. Gollum received an award for the viewer voted category Favourite Creature Character. Andy Serkis accepted the award on behalf of Gollum with a humorous taped acceptance speech. Aragorn won for the viewer voted category Favourite Movie Hero. Viggo Mortensen accepted the award via a taped speech from the set of "Hidalgo". Other awards won:

Best Action Sequence
Best Sc-Fi, Fantasy Movie

The Wizard writes: My daughter Stefanie and I recently returned from our trip to New Zealand. I thought you might be interested in what we saw and did there. Thank all of you so much for your help in planning this great adventure. [More]

An'ron writes: I thought fellow British LOTR aficionados might like to know about this concert. Sunday July 6th: RPO Filmharmonic; The best of Hollywood film scores from the 1960s to the present day, presented by Classic FM at the Movies' Simon Bates. [More]

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Cable's Discovery Channel will unveil its first original movie early next year. The movie, called "12 Days of Terror," will dramatize the true story of a series of shark attacks off the New Jersey Shore in the summer of 1916. Four swimmers were killed and a fifth badly hurt in the attacks, which inspired Peter Benchley's novel "Jaws." The movie, based on a book by Richard Fernicola, stars John Rhys-Davies ("The Lord of the Rings" ), Jenna Harrison ("Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister" ) and Colin Egglesfield. It recently finished shooting in South Africa. [More]

K writes: The August issue of Total Film UK has a small article on the Return of the King. It is basically the same pictures that were released by New Line with a small article about what to expect. But for all those Orlando Bloom fans out there it comes with a poster of him in Pirates of the Carribean. [More]

Tracey writes: I just heard that MTV is showing a special on Entertainment Weekly's IT list tomorrow (June 27th) at 10 PM. Being that Orlando Bloom (Legolas) is one of the people chosen in that list, I'm sure he's going to be mentioned within the half hour.

Mick writes: I received an email this morning from SideShowToys informing me that the ROTK medallions have been cancelled due to low consumer support. However, the special 'free' helm for loyal medallion customers will still be distributed.

Show your loyalty and get some of these great items today! [More]

Images from the Middle Earth returning to Forll at the request of the city council that was impressed with the number of visitors during the successful exhibition there last December. A journey through the Middle Earth with more than 100 works of art by the most important illustrators of "The Lord of the Rings" from around the world. [More]

Laura writes: I was just browsing through some horse ads, and I noticed this mare for sale. I thought some people might find it interesting! [More]

If anyone knows who rode Hanalei in ROTK, drop me a line!

Meg writes: The Fashion Institute (Los Angeles) has posted pictures of the Two Towers costumes from this year's movie costume exhibit on their site. Since some of the costumes went back to New Zealand to work before the end of the exhibit in May, even those who saw the exhibit may have missed a costume or three. [More]

Uh-oh... Looks like some of the hottest items in all of geekdom are about to go away forever. Better buy now before it is too late!! [More]

Nexus Editrice is proud to announce the acquisition of the boardgame rights from Tolkien Enterprise/Sophisticated Games to publish worldwide a wargame based on "The Lord of the Rings". [More]

Greetings Unto All Ringers attending Comic Con in San Diego this year. There will be 2 Moots for Ringers to meet at Comic Con Both will take place at The Field Irish Pub and Restaurant two blocks north of the Convention Center, 544 5th Ave. The Field is a wonderful Irish Pub with a great atmosphere. [More]

Morm writes: The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) passed TTT on video a few days ago with a 12 Rating and with no cuts made. Due to an increase in frame rate when film is transferred to video the running time is listed as 171 mins 58s. The ROTK Preview has a run time of 12m 32s and the SE DVD Preview is 5m 19s long.

It has been a fair while, but Sir Ian McKellen has finally gotten around to updating 'The White Book' (his diary of the Lord of the Rings-production). This time it features some information about the reshoots and lots of nice behind-the-scenes pictures! Be sure to read it over here!

Just kidding. Thanks to Tiel and others who sent us this cute spoof article on bbspot.com [More]

Various rumors have been floating around about the time and place of the European premiere of The Return of the King. The most persistant one seems to be indicating that it will be held in Berlin, Germany, and Cirdan from Herr-der-Ringe-film.de has some more info on that: "According to the Russian website themes.ru the European Premiere of THE RETURN OF THE KING will be in Berlin, Germany at December 10th, 2003."

That's all we have at the moment, but I'll put my 2 cents on that being true...

New Line Home Entertainment plans to make a big splash at Comic-Con, July 16-20 in San Diego, with a "spectacular" LOTR booth featuring a special Live program on July 19th and a video wall. The video wall will display, among other things, the answers to an online poll at the official site. Go vote now! [More]

LadySamwise writes: Orlando Bloom (Legolas) and Ian McKellen (Gandalf) are included in a list of the Sexiest Vegetarians alive on Peta. They are holding a poll and having people vote for who they think is the sexiest. [More]

The results are in for the 'Speak Fan...and enter!' contest! 10 lucky winners will be announced on July 15th, so stayed tuned! Houghton Mifflin would like to thank all participants by giving us an exclusive look a the upcoming release of the latest movie tie-in edition of The Lord of the Rings. Check it out! [More]

Lucky writes: Some days ago I heard that ROTK would be released in Brazil on December, 25th. But now one of the biggest sites about cinema in Brazil said yesterday that the movie will be released here on December, 19th, just TWO days after the official date. [More]

Jim Korkis shines a spotlight on Hollywood's first attempt to turn J.R.R. Tolkien's literary masterpiece into an epic film series: Ralph Bakshi's animated "Lord of the Rings." I got an opportunity to meet with Ralph Bakshi before the release of his animated version of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. I had been warned of his sometimes overpowering personality where he often assumed the persona of the "new" Disney who was going to save animation from the children's ghetto of Saturday morning television or kiddie matinees at theaters. [More]

DarkTPara sends along these scans and a translation from the German magazine Space View, the magazine featured an interview with Craig Parker (Haldir). [More]

The yearly Tolkien celebrations in Oxford will be bigger than ever on account of it being his eleventy-first birthday this year. If you're in England in September, you wouldn't want to miss this. [More]

The soon to be famous Dom-land Caribou Site, here to make you laugh. [More]

Gondorian extra John realised he'd given us some wrong info about where Arwen might turn up in the next movie. [More]

Do you write fanmail? Wondering how to write to your favourite actors? This site does a lot of the legwork for you, though of course there's never a guarantee anyone will answer. Good luck! [More] Thanks to Hobbitlass for the link.

Thanks to Maegwen for this link to Sci-fi Wire, where Orlando Bloom (Legolas) talks about the re-shoots he's just completed. [More]

Adam Ruben, Executive Producer of a production company in the Twin Cities area called 'Drive Thru' wrote in asking us to find some hard core LOTR fans for something really cool! Take a look! [More]

Minty writes: I just thought I'd let you know that at 00:30 at the Glastonbury Festival in their Cine Tent this Sunday they're showing The Two Towers for FREE! They say that you should bring a blanket, I'll see you there! [More]

Wellington rates will go up more than expected this year and the City Council says the 'Lord of the Rings' movie trilogy is partly to blame. A one percent rates increase was allowed for in the draft long term community plan but that increase is looking more like being 1.75 percent. [More]

Soccerdude writes: I am not sure if you know of a TV channel called G4TV or not but on a show called Cinematech they recently showed a few screen shots and animation of the new game LOTR:ROTK and it looks awsome. You are able to see Gandalf fighting orcs while leading Gondorian Soldiers through Minas Tirith, Catapults breaking away at buildings and Fell Beasts with Nazgul on top. [Gaming Havens]

From IMDB: Cate Blanchett's Best Actress Oscar nomination failed to boost her career - because producers just wanted her to repeat her celebrated role in Elizabeth. The Australian star found that, contrary to expectations, an Academy Award nomination 1998 actually hindered her desire to play a wide variety of roles. She explains, "Just because one is nominated for an Academy Award doesn't mean that everything changes. The offers I had after Elizabeth were to do the same thing again, and I wasn't interested in doing that. I wanted to reclaim or to claim the space to actually keep working. I'm in it for the long haul and not for the short-term benefits, and I've been lucky enough always to do work that interests me."

Ringer RL from the Telcontari Group has sent in word that Brazil can expect to see The Return of the King starting on December 25th, the same dates that FotR and TTT were released there. Now that's what I call a Christmas present!

FTCrodis writes: There are a few Lord of the Rings nominations in the Teen Choice Awards this year. Although there are only a few noms, they are rather important ones, Elijah Wood is up for Best Actor in a Drama/Action Movie, TTT is up for Best Drama/Action Film, and the TTT battles are up for something like Best Fight Sequence. [More]

This bit of news in regards to ROTK was first spotted on DarkHorizons, however people are sending this to me from various sources. The folks from 'Secondhand Lions' did contact me recently to confirm this bit of news in regards to the trailer, so who knows! [More]

Rozie writes: I just wanted to let you know that Orlando Bloom (Legolas) will be on TRL on July 2nd. Here is the link from MTV (US). [More]

They call him the Goblin. He is the new toast of Russia's massive pirate video industry, his films sought all over Moscow. The trick of his silver screen success is that the Goblin redubs Hollywood movies, using his own 'better' Russian alternative to the script. A former senior police investigator from St Petersburg, Dmitri Puchkov began by making fresh translations to replace the appalling subtitles on pirated films. But now his cult following has found pan-Russian appeal, with a ground-breaking rewrite of the first two parts of The Lord of the Rings. [More]

John Howe writes: I've checked out the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival site, which provides the following details on the Expo. 'Sur les Terres de Tolkien - Exposition John Howe: 60 original drawings, July 1-6, Free. Just a reminder that RICHARD TAYLOR will be in Neuchâtel for the week of the festival, so if you want to meet the man who MADE Middle-Earth, then turn up and say hello. [John-Howe.com]

The folks at New Line write: I wanted to take the opportunity to personally thank you for your votes in the first ever Online Voter's Choice for The Hollywood Key Art Awards. Thanks to your dedication, the official website not only received the industry panel award, but the Online award as well!

According to our friends at the Hollywood Reporter, the votes for our site exceeded the others by several hundred - and we know that is due to the passion and loyalty of the fans.

We really appreciate your support. Stay tuned for a new poster and trailer soon for the next installment, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King!

Vorsir writes: I just wanted to let you know the magazine "Red Carpet" has a 2 page comic on Mark Ordeskys passion on LOTR, even goes to show how they called him Frodo in High School.

Anyone with scans of the article, send them along!

Robert sends along the good word that the Italian Tolkien fans can expect 'Return of the King' to open in December of this year instead of a month later like the past 2 years. Good news!

Anthony writesL I was reading on the DVD Talk website about the annual Video Store Magazine DVD Conference and the article including some info about the TTT Extended Version DVD and a tidbit on the ROTK DVD. 'One very encouraging note for Lord of the Rings fans who have bought or are planning to buy the Extended Editions - New Line has stated that they are not going to punish loyal fans who buy their Extended Editions buy putting out some sort of other 'Super-Ultimate' Edition or Collection after the third film is out. So your investment in the Extended Editions is safe.' [More]

Charly writes: This article (in Danish) tells that Peter Jackson and Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) will attend the grand opening on ROTK in Denmark on December 14th. Apparently PJ has always wanted to meet the danish queen, and now he got the chance, since she will be attending the opening to. The danish queen has a great interest in Tolkien and LOTR in particular. She actually has illustrated a danish release of the books. [More]

Diamond Took writes: Sean Bean's (Boromir) 1992 movie "Lady Chatterley's Lover" is being released in the US on Tuesday, June 24th. I believe it's being called "Lady Chatterly" here in the states. There was an article in the June 20th issue of "Entertainment Weekly". [More]

This week Gaming Havens editor Flinch had the joy of traveling to Seattle, WA, to learn about a very exciting new Tradeable Miniatures Game based in Tolkien's Middle-earth that's slated to hit stores shortly before Return of the King. Take a read through our preview, and don't forget to check out the exclusive first look images. [More]