Tehanu, co-founder of TheOneRing.net, has written some of the most perceptive comments on the Lord of the Rings film that have appeared on the internet. Now she has weighed in to heartily approve the all-but-certain choice of Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro to direct The Hobbit. She is a big fan of Pan’s Labyrinth and offers insights as to how Del Toro’s approach to fantasy in that film is in some ways similar to Tolkien’s. Highly recommended. You can read her piece here.

By now the news that Guillermo Del Toro is in talks to direct both The Hobbit and the bridging film linking it to The Lord of the Rings is all over the internet. That news comes from The Hollywood Reporter, which is typically a reliable source.

I first saw the story linked on TheOneRing.net by Calisuri (a co-founder of TORN and one of my interviewees for The Frodo Franchise). Calisuri points out that opinion among fans is divided, but adds, “This reporter is hoping Guillermo Del Toro is on the short list!” Along with Sam Raimi, Del Toro has been one of the directors rumored for months to be a top contender. Now that Rings fans have gotten a bit used to the idea that Peter Jackson will only produce the film, I think the idea of Del Toro as director strikes many as a good choice. more »

I’m sure most of you know about this already, but today’s new episode of The Simpsons had an amusing LOTR reference. In the flashback to Marge’s short-lived college days, she passes a group sitting on the lawn. A young Comic-Book Guy tells four rapt young geeks, “And that’s why The Lord of the Rings can never be filmed.” This is supposed to be taking place in the mid-1990s. In September of 1995, Peter Jackson set out to make a film of that novel. I suspect the Comic-Book Guy’s store carried quite a few of the resulting licensed products.

On January 22, TheOneRing.net reproduced a brief story that had appeared on the Internet Movie Data Base. The story claimed that New Line co-presidents Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne would probably be let go when their current contracts terminate at some point later this year. New Line Cinema, producer of The Lord of the Rings and co-producer, with MGM, on the Hobbit project, would be absorbed into parent company Warner Bros. (itself part of Time Warner).

On January 23, TORN said that there was “no truth” to the rumor. New Line had emailed them to say that “the story was false, and they are seeking a correction on IMDB.” So far I don’t see any sign of one.

In the TORN forum discussion of the subject, Sunflower asks, “But how did IMDB get it in the first place?” Good question. The story did not originate there. more »

Some of you probably know that my husband and I spent last May in New Zealand. (We wrote about it on our “Observations on film art and Film Art” blog, here and here.) While there I picked up some Kiwi books and DVDs, since it’s sometimes difficult to order them from abroad. One such purchase was Lindsay Shelton’s The Selling of New Zealand Movies (Awa Press, 2005). Shelton was an important behind-the-scenes figure in the country’s film industry and culture, starting the Wellington Film Festival in 1972 and becoming the overseas sales agent for the young New Zealand Film Commission from 1978 to 2000. I don’t know of any other book written by a major film-sales agent, and it gives a fascinating insight into how such things work. (As anyone who has read The Frodo Franchise is aware, I’m intrigued by the nuts and bolts of many aspects of the film industry.) more »

In all the fuss around the announcement of the Hobbit project in mid-December, a significant event that was announced at that same time got largely overlooked. Joe Letteri, a senior visual effects supervisor on The Lord of the Rings and King Kong and Oscar winner for The Two Towers, The Return of the King, and Kong, has been made a full partner at Weta Digital. more »

There’s a very amusing four-minute film on YouTube, “The Downfall of HD-TV.” Watch it through to the end for the reference to The Lord of the Rings and its importance to the battle between the Blu-ray and HD-TV formats (which Blu-ray is on the verge of winning).

[January 19. Apparently the original film was removed due to a copyright complaint. It has, not surprisingly, been posted on YouTube again, in a distinctly less sharp copy. If that’s gone as well, do a search on “Downfall of HD-TV”; there’s a Japanese-subtitled version there as well.]

I’m happy to see that my entry on the huge obstacles to getting to be an extra or a minor crew member on The Hobbit film has been linked on some fans’ discussion forums. A participant in one German group asked for information on a related topic. Suppose one were to go to New Zealand and hang around outside the studios or drive behind the production vehicles going out to a location. Would it be possible to catch a glimpse of the sets or watch some of the filming? After all, as this fan points out, one is free to use the public roads. more »

On TheOneRing.net, Calisuri shares a TV program he recently ran across: an episode of the Discovery Channels series, “How It’s Made” that includes a brief segment on pinball machines. The machine being made is a Lord of the Rings game. more »

Larry Ivy has written to let me know that this year his company, Magical Tours, is for the first time offering a Rings-based tour of England. It’s “The Ring Quest – Origins of Lord of the Rings,” and it will take place from June 14 to 23. You can read about it, including the price and a day by day itinerary, on the company’s website. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, you might want to check out Magical Tours other offerings.

The “Ring Quest” tour is based on the idea that although the films were made in New Zealand—and we all know that travel to the shooting locations there has been popular among fans—the books were inspired by places in England that Tolkien knew. From the looks of the itinerary, there will be a balance between major tourist sites like Stonehenge and places like the Eagle and Child (aka “Bird and Baby”) pub in Oxford, gathering place of the Inklings.

Booking is open now and will end on March 15. The tour size is limited to 20 people, and the price does not include transportation to London.