4-20-00 Latest News

ImagineCon 2000 Report: Thursday, April 20th
Corvar @ 23:07 EST

This evening at 6PM EDT marked the begining of ImagineCon. Calisuri, Blasm, and myself spent the day making our final preparations for our 'fan table' at the front of the Pavillion Convention Center in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Having arrived late last night, due to a variety of transportation mishaps, we got a late start.

ImagineCon is a Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror convention hosting a wide variety of featured speakers and guests. You can find out more about ImagineCon at their website. ImageineCon will last until Sunday Apr 23rd, we hope if it is possible that you stop by and say "Hello".

Starting at 6PM we started showing the Internet Preview to fans of all sorts. Many surprisingly did not realize that LOTR was being made into a set of films, but we educated them. The interest in the project, us, and Tolkien in general warmed our hearts and increased our panic over the presentations we have to make over the following two days. Many wonderful people stopped by to chat for a while including Shecky, Bill the Fox,Rosemary's Baby, and Dehvyn.

Mike TeaVee (Paris Themmen in real life) of Willy Wonka fame stopped by our table to have an exclusive preview of Saturday's presentation. It turns out he will be signing autographs then.

Hopefully in the morning the rest of our stuff will arrive courtesy of FedEx and we can truely spread the word about the films. We will be checking back in the following two nights to give you further reports from ImagineCon. You can take a peak at the action in the following photo's.

The Pavilion Conventio Center - Setup Day

The Big Box of Squishy Balls

Crowding around TheOneRing.net Table

Crowd at Table. Shecky, Bill the Fox, Rogue and others viewing the trailer

Calisuri and Corvar- Wonder Twin power activate

ImagineCon's Dehvyn - Security Guy and Proud owner of a Stress Ball

Meida Watch: The Vancouver Sun
Xoanon @ 01:49 EST

The Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, April 19th, 2000

LORD OF THE RINGS MOVIE SHROUDED IN MYSTERY

Mike Shahin - Southam Newspapers

WELLINGTON, N.Z. -- Whether the legions of Ring fans around the world are ready or not, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is being turned into a series of three movies.

While New Zealand director Peter Jackson stages Orc battles and Hobbit miracles in the shadows of New Zealand's imposing mountains, the movie's L.A. production company finds itself jousting with the public's desire to know more about the project.

On one side is a film company, New Line Cinema, wanting to protect its $260-million investment by keeping its work under cover until it is ready to be seen -- while still getting as much publicity as it can, of course.

On the other side is a community of Tolkien fans, organized mostly through the Internet, and world media dying to know more about the movies. Many fans are serving as self-appointed watchdogs to ensure the epic story isn't corrupted. Both groups simply want to be voyeurs to the film-making.

Last weekend, after keeping its gates tightly closed to outsiders since shooting began late last year, New Line (a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc.) released on the Internet a two-minute preview and inside look at the making of the film.

According to New Line and Apple Computer, the preview was downloaded nearly 1.7 million times during its first 24 hours on the Internet. This, New Line trumpeted in a news release, shattered the record of one million hits registered by an online trailer for Star Wars' The Phantom Menace last year.

"This staggering launch shows how important the online community is to our marketing efforts moving forward," said Gordon Paddison, a New Line marketing executive.

But not all interaction with the "online community" has been so cosy for the film's makers. Auckland resident Erica Challis, who helps run a Web site about the Rings movies, was in January served with a trespass notice banning her from the film set. Producer Barrie Osborne said at the time that she was banned because she suggested on her site that she would try to snoop for film details on set.

"It makes them look ridiculous," Challis told a Wellington newspaper after receiving the notice. "It's like using a sledgehammer to squash a fly."

Soon after, amateur New Zealand actor Eddie McCarthy said he was blacklisted by Wellington acting agencies after publishing a light-hearted account of his time as an extra on the Rings set.

McCarthy said he received a letter from the producers advising him that he had breached a clause in his contract that prohibited him from talking to the media about the film.

Throughout the shooting in New Zealand, Rings publicist Claire Raskind has received about 100 international media requests every month for access to the heavily-guarded sets and the stars of the film. Nearly all of them are thanked for their interest and turned away.

If all this seems a bit heavy-handed, with New Line resembling the dark lord of Mordor, fans should remember that movie-makers have always exerted careful control and promotional spin over their product. In the case of the Lord of the Rings, the pressure on the producers is enormous.

The novel, nearly a half-century old, has sold 50 million copies and has been read by people in 25 languages. It is a quintessential tale of good versus evil, an old-fashioned story told with simple elegance and an exquisitely intricate plot. Fans don't read the 1000 or so pages of the Rings just once -- they read it once a year.

But the cult-like devotion of many Tolkien fans manifests itself in some strange ways, mainly on the Internet. Examples abound of what director Peter Jackson has called an "underlying current of paranoia and fear."

There are entire societies dedicated to speaking the languages invented by the author. There is a petition, with nearly 9000 signatures, beseeching the producers of the film trilogy to keep the book's "integrity" intact.

"We believe wholesale alterations ... are completely unnecessary, would violate the integrity of Tolkien's work, and alienate many of his fans," the purists warn. "If these kind of changes are in fact planned, we appeal to you, as creators of this project, to stop and consider your obligation to do what is right in service of Professor Tolkien's legacy. Many, many people have come to love this story as it is, and will be strong supporters of these films, provided they tell the story as we know and love it."

There are an estimated 400 Web sites devoted to the movies alone, and probably hundreds more devoted to Tolkien's work. Many of the movie sites thrive on rumours about budget, cast and storyline, and every bit of real news about the production is seized on and spread with lightning speed. Illicit photos are snapped at sets and smuggles onto the Net. The most notable was of two actors dressed as Nazgul, the dreaded Black Riders of Sauron, puffing on cigarettes during a smoke break.

All the while, fans drool over the prospect of having Hollywood put a face on a story that has existed for so many years in their imagination. "I love it," gushed a fan after watching the Internet preview. "I don't care if [the movie] deviates from the book. I've been waiting some 20 years to get a peep at the images I just saw, I'm already popping the popcorn."

Eighteen months of shooting is due to finish at the end of this year. The first of the three movies, The Fellowship of the Ring, should be out by December 2001.

Thanks to Corinne and Tom for the article!

Media Watch: The Full Story
Xoanon @ 21:23 EST

Second, in the "Winner/Loser of the Week" feature, the Winner of the Week is The Lord of the Rings. "In its first day on the Internet, the trailer for New Line's fantasy flick was reportedly downloaded more times then the preview of The Phantom Menace."

People Magazine's April 24th edition also jumps in with a review of 28 Days. Here Viggo gets a very brief mention as a fellow patient.

The April issue of Movieline magazine lists 400 Hollywood factoids, a few of which concern our intrepid cast members.

# 176: "Until the age of 10, Liv Tyler (Arwen) believed that her biological father was rock star Todd Rundgren, not rock star Steven Tyler, her actual father."

# 219: "Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) speaks fluent Spanish and Danish."

# 256: "Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) claims to be distantly related to LOUIS BLÉRIOT (1872-1936), the first aviator to have crossed the English Channel."

Special Report: Barrie Osborne Interview
Xoanon @ 00:41 EST

The good folks at Newsmonitor Services Limited have given me permission to post thier interview with Barrie Osborne that aired on Tuesday.

Please note: The following is Copyright.

PAUL HOLMES: Now Lord of the Rings, they must, well they were tremendously happy at the reaction around the world really to that sneak preview of Lord of the Rings which they put on the website the other night and almost, I think, 1.7 million fans really of Lord of the Rings, 1.7 million curious people around the world accessed that website in the, in the first 24 hours, remember it was put on a website at 7 o'clock last Friday night. Anyway what about the making of Lord of the Rings. It's produced by Barry Osborne who, or it's being produced by Barry Osborne, Director Peter Jackson of course but produced by Barry Osborne who was also producer of the Matrix and Barry Osborne is with us, good morning.

BARRY OSBORNE: Hello Paul how are you.

HOLMES: Good where are you.

OSBORNE: Standing on top of Mt Ruapehu at the moment.

HOLMES: You could probably think of better places to be.

OSBORNE: That's a lovely spot however it's a little foggy.

HOLMES: Congratulations on the Matrix (thank you very much) do you say Matrix or four oscars for technical brilliance that must have been very heartening.

OSBORNE: Yes it was it was a lot of fun to make that film.

HOLMES: Is the technical stuff, are the special effects going to be very much a feature of Lord of the Rings.

OSBORNE: Ah yes actually you couldn't bring this picture to the screen without relying on the recent increases in the capabilities of visual effects, technology yeah.

HOLMES: Are you going to be doing, do you call that post production don't you a lot of that, are you going to be done that here or in Los Angeles.

OSBORNE: The entire films are being done here including all the post production and the visual effects are at WETA which is Peter's company with several partners.

HOLMES: And so we must be then pretty good by world standards if Peter can do it here.

OSBORNE: You certainly are and they've got quite a facility in Wellington that they've built up.

HOLMES: You must have been, were you surprised by reaction to the 2 minutes on the website the other night.

OSBORNE: Ah yeah it's really gratifying and I think it's a tribute to both Lord of the Rings and the international cast that has been assembled to portray it on the screen and to Peter Jackson, yeah it's really gratifying. We're out here day after day slogging it out for 255 days up and down mountains and all over the country and it's great to see that there's such an interest in the work, it makes all that effort worth while.

HOLMES: Especially when you put about $360 million or when people, you know, when you've got backers who have put 360 million bucks in it's nice to know there is tremendous interest.

OSBORNE: It certainly takes a little pressure off.

HOLMES: I bet it does. Of course yes up and down mountains as you say in all kinds of weather of course people forget that, you know, the making of a film is really, it can be a lot of drudgery can't it.

OSBORNE: A lot of long hours and a lot of effort yes and a lot of hard work.

HOLMES: It's a trilogy, you are doing it as a trilogy as Tolkien conceived the story, are you, I'm just intrigued by this because I haven't been able to really find this out. Are you making them all at once.

OSBORNE: Yes we are, we're going, we're filming for about a 15 month period and we're filming as I say all over New Zealand rather than going around the country several times. We're doing whatever scenes are appropriate from any of one of the three trilogies in each of the locations that we go to.

HOLMES: All right that must make it very hard for the Director, it must make it very hard for the actors, you know, to keep an eye on where their characters ought to be in terms of development.

OSBORNE: Correct at least however we have the books and you can always refer to that, you can always refer to the scripts and keep in character. Yes it is though, it's very difficult.

HOLMES: Are you going to release them all at once or are you going to tease them out.

OSBORNE: They are going to be released 6 months to a year apart and partially because of the amount of work in post production, post production and the visual effects that take quite a long time to produce after the films are finished filming.

HOLMES: Is that where the money goes really is it, I mean is that what eats the money the visual effects.

OSBORNE: Well it's a combination but yes the visual effects are a huge chunk of our budget.

HOLMES: And also the sets, I mean you are building the most phenomenally elaborate sets.

OSBORNE: They are it sort of reminds me I did Apocalypse Now years and years ago in a huge compound, a scope I thought I would never see again I am seeing on this film.

HOLMES: What did you do in Apocalypse.

OSBORNE: I was a Production Manager.

HOLMES: What an amazing film to work on (thank you) eh.

OSBORNE: Yeah it was quite an undertaking it was quite an experience.

HOLMES: We're talking to Barry Osborne, Barry if you will stay there just for a minute I will take a break and then we will come back to you is that all right.(sure) Barry Osborne, Producer himself of Lord of the Rings, he's going to be with us. He's up Mt Ruapehu at the moment in the fog. He's on a cellphone we will come back to him in a couple of minutes. [...] Our very special guest this morning is Barry Osborne, he's the producer no less, the producer of the Lord of the Rings trilogy being made at tremendous, hundreds of millions expense, here in New Zealand Barry Osborne is still with us in the fog up Mt Ruapehu. Who is playing Gandalf.

OSBORNE: Gandalf is played by Sir Ian McKellern.

HOLMES: Sir Ian McKellern himself. What kind of approach is he taking Barry.

OSBORNE: You know he's studied the books, he knows the books quite well and he's got a sense of humour in the role and a sense of dignity, he's great.

HOLMES: And Frodo.

OSBORNE: Frodo is Elijah Wood.

HOLMES: Did you get good response to the Hobbits by the way, all the extras, how many extras have you got.

OSBORNE: We have 350 extras on Ruapehu actually (how many) 350 (that's a lot of extras) we do have a lot of extras yes.

HOLMES: In the fog feeding them soup.

OSBORNE: Exactly, actually the fog is starting to lift it's gratifying.

HOLMES: That's very nice. The, did you get over your Department of Conservation worries, can you use choppers there at all.

OSBORNE: No we can't use helicopters which we felt it would have been actually less impact on the land had they allowed that but for whatever their internal policies are they didn't but they've been very cooperative and we are very gratified to have that.

HOLMES: Were you a little bit out by that though. Here we are spending $360 million of overseas money and we couldn't use a chopper in a national park.

OSBORNE: Well they have the right to determine, you know, I understand the need to protect the land. I just and I would never weigh the amount of money we're spending against the need to, for conservation. I was a little surprised because I actually thought we would have had less impact by using helicopters than we'll have by trudging everything in by foot.

HOLMES: Tell me about Peter Jackson as a Director. I understand he's wonderful with his stars, he's wonderful at getting the best out of his key actors.

OSBORNE: Yes he is, he's always, he works very closely with them and encourages their input and spends a lot of time doing rehearsal. Peter is a tireless director, he works on Sunday often with them and having them over at the house and doing research for the work coming up the next week, gives them a lot of time on Saturday so it's great.

HOLMES: Where do they rehearse, I mean where would they, so at his..

OSBORNE: Well they might rehearse at his home or sometimes go to the sound station if there's a set up and rehearse on set it depends, various.

HOLMES: So how many people up the mountain have you got at the moment. You talked about 650 extras, 300 what did you say (350) 350 extras and then of course I mean you've got the catering teams as well, you've got, how many people would you have up there.

OSBORNE: Well I would guess and this is just a guess, it would be between A and B we have two units up here so we probably have another 300 people so we've employ about 650 all told maybe 700.

HOLMES: And are the stars in trailers, you know, like they are in Los Angeles. (yes they are) In trailers, so you have got to cart the trailers in as well.

OSBORNE: Yes we do.

HOLMES: What are trailers like, are they just big caravans.

OSBORNE: They are big caravans, they're about, I think our caravans are about 32, 36 feet long.

HOLMES: And did you have to, like do they have to be imported, do they..

OSBORNE: No we got them from various places within New Zealand.

HOLMES: And do they have to have special star things in them.

OSBORNE: We try to make it comfortable for the actors, the actors are pretty cooperative with us, you try to give them a comfortable place to go and relax between scenes especially when you are filming all night so they will have a stereo and they have a TV and a video player and (and a heater) and a heater and they have air conditioning when that's appropriate.

HOLMES: Do you try and heat the sets at the moment because it's pretty chilly I imagine.

OSBORNE: It is chilly but no that would be impossible, we do have warm up tents and that sort of thing when it's appropriate.

HOLMES: Yeah the special effects you are going to be using. Of course you just won the four oscars of course or the film won the four oscars your film Matrix but are these special effects we're going to see in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy are they very much state of the art.

OSBORNE: Yes they are, yeah they are. In fact some of what was on in the internet tease areas was really proof of concept stuff not really finished effects but it gives you an indication of direction that we're going in.

HOLMES: Speaking of the internet there were on a negative note some reservations expressed by the, you know, the purist Lord of the Rings purists and nutters around the world are you worried by reaction to that because the book, you know, people, so many hundreds of, probably millions of people around the world feel they own the book.

OSBORNE: Of course then it's an incredible responsibility to bring Tolkien's work to the screen but we have taken great care to actually honour what we believe his intent was and in fact we have his, the two main Tolkien conceptual artists, Alan Lee and John Howe have been our conceptual artists and have worked on this film from day one helping to design the sets and helping to design the look of the film so that we would actually be true to Tolkien's image so some of those comments I think, although we take them on board, we hope people reserve judgement till they actually see the finished film.

HOLMES: Just very quickly, how long did Peter work on the film.

OSBORNE: Well Peter has been working on this for over four years

HOLMES: Yeah, hey well listen Barry thank you very much indeed for your time and all the very best with the progress of the film and it's going to be a beauty.

OSBORNE: Thank you very much. (goodbye now) Appreciate the time, yeah bye bye.

HOLMES: That's Barry Osborne the Producer himself the man really in charge of the spending of the hundreds of millions of dollars on Lord of the Rings.

LOTR Preview Breaks Record!
Calisuri @ 22:31 EST

Official press release from New Line Cinema:

(Los Angeles, Ca April 10, 2000) -- More web browsers downloaded the online promotional trailer for The Lord of the Rings during its first 24-hours of availability than any other film marketing footage in history, including the online trailer for Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace, it was announced today by New Line Cinema.

1,671,000 people worldwide downloaded behind-the-scenes promotional footage of The Lord of the Rings on Friday, April 7th alone. The number has been confirmed by Apple Computer, which also counted downloads for last year's Star Wars web extravaganza. Apple reported only 1 million downloads in the first 24-hour period that the Star Wars theatrical trailer was available online.

Records on the official The Lord of the Rings site were shattered almost immediately as fans of the J.R.R. Tolkein novel began logging onto www.lordoftherings.net for exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the secretive motion picture project.

Traffic to the site was steady through the day and night due to the studio's outreach to approximately 25 The Lord of the Rings fan websites which had been heralding the launch of the trailer for days. The promotion of the global online event was also aided by New Line's exclusive NeoPlanet Lord of the Rings web browser and a unique series of internet clubs.

"This staggering number validates New Line's investment in The Lord of the Rings," said Joe Nimziki, President of Theatrical Marketing for New Line. "To outpace Star Wars by such a large margin is a great indication of the popularity of this franchise."

According to Gordon Paddison, Vice President of Worldwide Interactive Marketing, the success of the online effort is directly attributed to the allegiance of devoted fans. "The power behind this number is the fans and the incredible success we've had is directly attributed to the coordinated relationship we've had with the online community. We have been working closely with The Lord of the Rings fan sites worldwide for the past year and this staggering launch shows how important the online community is to our marketing efforts moving forward."

One of the most celebrated novels of the 20^th Century, The Lord of the Rings is a groundbreaking epic of good versus evil, extraordinary heroes, wondrous creatures and dark armies of terror. Generations of more than 50 million people around the globe, in 25 different languages have grown up with this epic history. The legend has inspired an entire genre of movies, fiction, and has influenced some of the greatest artists of our time. It has made dreamers out of children and adults, and has recently been named the number one most popular book of the century. But it has never been told in its entirety on the screen.

Using the power of contemporary cinema technology, New Line Cinema is transforming J.R.R. Tolkien's classic into a history-making motion picture event. Beginning in the year 2001, New Line will present a grand trilogy of live-action feature films -- The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King -- that will take audiences inside Tolkien's living, breathing mythology, the world that is Middle-earth. The three separately released installments will also mark the return of "Cliffhanger Cinema" for the first time since the serial adventures of decades past.

The Lord of the Rings will collectively re-tell the story of Frodo Baggins, who battles against the Dark Lord, Sauron to save Middle-earth from the grip of evil. In the films, Frodo and The Fellowship embarks on a desperate journey to rid the earth of the source of Sauron's greatest strength, the One Ring, a ring of such power that it cannot be destroyed. His extraordinary adventures across the treacherous landscape of Middle-earth reveal how the power of friendship and courage can hold the forces of darkness at bay.

Tolkien's mythic vision will come to life through cutting-edge cinema technology and artistry, forging unprecedented opportunities for marketing and licensing.

By shooting all three films consecutively during one massive production and post-production schedule, New Line Cinema is making history. Never before has such a monumental undertaking been contemplated or executed. The commitment of time, resources and manpower are unheard of and all three films are being produced concurrently with the same director and core cast. Helmer Peter Jackson, whose visionary style of filmmaking and emotional acuity won accolades for his Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners, brings his deep love for the source material to the project. The film features a strong international cast that includes (in alphabetical order) Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Brad Dourif, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, John Rhys-Davis, Liv Tyler, and Elijah Wood. But the real star of the film is the story itself - a classic hero's quest in which the smallest of beings changes the course of the future with the vastness of his courage.

Founded in 1967, New Line Cinema is the entertainment industry's leading independent producer and distributor of theatrical motion pictures. New Line licenses its films to ancillary markets including cable and broadcast television as well as to international venues. The company, which is a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc., operates several divisions including in-house theatrical distribution, marketing, home video, television, acquisitions, production, licensing and merchandising units.