As most readers no doubt know, during last year and this, Ian toured in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of King Lear. I managed to see the play live at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Not surprisingly, he gave a magnificent performance.

Early on it was announced that production would be filmed, resulting in TV broadcasts and a DVD release. Last month there was a bit of frustration as PBS’s president announced that it would air King Lear “this season” but wouldn’t say when. We still don’t know, but I notice that Ian’s website now lists December 26 as the date when it will be shown on Channel Four in the United Kingdom. A nice Christmas present! Maybe now PBS will take a cue and let us know when we here in the States can expect it.

(Sorry, a bit off-topic, but I really urge those who missed it on the stage to grab this chance to see it on the small screen. Plus even now the idea that one of the great classical actors of our age played Gandalf delights me.)

At last I’ve had a chance to go through the various documents that have piled up this summer in the lawsuit by the Tolkien Trust against New Line Cinema. I first summarized the suit on February 18 and followed that up on April 21. Here I’ll try to lay out the highlights of what has happened since then, month by month. Earlier this year I was hopeful that we would see a settlement in the case this summer, but that was obviously overly optimistic.

I don’t want to interpret these documents or make a case for either side as being in the right. I simply offer some thoughts that I hope will be useful to fans in following what is going on. more »

Variety announced yesterday that Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens have signed their contracts to work on The Hobbit and “Film 2.” The story specifies, “The announcement said the production’s tentatively set to begin in late 2009, with the releases set for 2011 and 2012.” From the dates the filmmakers have discussed online, I think “production” probably means principal photography. The plan given by Peter and Guillermo was for 2009 to be devoted to pre-production (design, construction, pre-viz, etc.).

Not that we had any doubts, but it’s good to hear that such core people are now officially on the projects.

TheOneRing.net has alerted us to a new interview with Guillermo Del Toro on The Scotsman website. (Hellboy II is being released in Scotland on August 20.) Having read a lot of interviews with GDT, I was afraid this one would just be a carbon copy of the earlier ones publishedwhen the film premiered in the U.S. Fortunately it’s different enough to be interesting, and I think it offers some insights not only to GDT’s personality but to the way he will approach filming The Hobbit. In his desire to work without interference from the production firm, he sounds distinctly like Peter Jackson.

By the way, I was too optimistic in suggesting that Hellboy II was a hit. It did quite well on its opening weekend, but that opening was one week before that of The Dark Knight–which obviously swamped everything in its path. It was unfortunate timing, and Hellboy II took a plunge in its second week and never recovered. Now it seems to have disappeared from first-run theaters, at least here in Madison. I’m sure it will be back, at least in cities and towns that have second-run (i.e., cheap seat) theaters. So far the film has opened in very few foreign countries, so maybe it can bring in more money abroad.

I’d recommend it. It’s very well made, and it’s also great fun, without stressing the fashionable “dark themes” that seem inescapable in other superhero fare this summer. (Hellboy II has its dark themes, but it employs a light touch in dealing with them.) The production design is impressive and the special effects are terrific. With a budget of only about $80 million, it looks better than blockbusters made for twice that much. Worth catching on the big screen if you can, on DVD if you can’t.

One of the first people I interviewed while researching The Frodo Franchise was Dr. Ruth Harley, who since 1997 has been the CEO of the New Zealand Film Commission. The NZFC (linked in my blogroll) is the government agency that helps foster local filmmaking–not location work by outside projects like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or The Last Samurai (that’s the province of Film New Zealand), but features and shorts by local filmmakers like Niki Caro and Geoff Murphy. I talked with Ruth twice, once in October of 2003, in the Wellington headquarters of the commission, and again in November of 2005, as my research was winding down, at the American Film Market. She provided insights into the impact that The Lord of the Rings had on Kiwi production. As I describe in Chapter 10 of my book, despite early fears that the trilogy would overwhelm local filmmaking, it turned out to be a real boon for the industry there.

Dr. Ruth Harley, third from left in front row, and the Rt. Hon. Helen Clark, Prime Minister and Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage, fourth from left, with the board of the New Zealand Film Commission

Now I read in Variety that Ruth has taken a post as head of the newly formed equivalent institution of New Zealand’s neighbor across the Tasman Sea, Screen Australia. The article describes this as “the top federal job in Oz showbiz.” If for one reason or another I should ever find myself in New Zealand again researching another book, I would miss being able to interview Ruth yet again, though I am sure that her successor would also be able to help me a great deal. I wish her the best in her new post.

In Chapter 4 of The Frodo Franchise, I discuss how studios with big franchises can line up “brand partners” to help bear the ballooning costs of advertising blockbusters. Other companies with brand-name recognition use characters or images from the film in the ads for their own products. They get to associate those products with a popular (with luck!) film, and the producer can get tens of millions of dollars in free ads. The Lord of the Rings had such partners as JVC, Kia, Duracell, and Verizon.

Now Variety has posted an excellent story on the brand partners for the upcoming James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. Author Marc Graser quotes industry estimates that put the amount of free advertising for the previous Bond entry, Casino Royale, at around $100 million. Probably that much will be spent on this new one. Graser also talks about which companies are on board this time and the new Bond-themes products that they plan to release in conjunction with the film. Omega watches, Smirnoff vodka, and Virgin Atlantic are among the associated brands. (The Trilogy had Air New Zealand, the main example I used in my book.)

If you were intrigued by the way these big companies help each other in creating mutual publicity, Graser’s article lays the whole thing out clearly and succinctly. You can be sure that the same sort of thing will happen with The Hobbit and “Film 2.”

I was very surprised to read on Variety‘s website today that the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is being put off from its scheduled date of November 21 to July 17 of next year. Not that that exactly has anything to do with The Lord of the Rings films. Still, many of you will remember those exciting days of late 2001, when Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (November 16) and The Fellowship of the Ring (December 19) were about to come out so close together. To some extent they were seen as competing with each other. Well, that may make for a more dramatic news story, but it turned out that there was plenty of enthusiasm about both–and plenty of wealth to share. Two of the biggest film franchises were thus launched only about a month apart.

The Harry Potter films were recently touted as the highest-grossing franchise of all time. True, HP’s $4,485,097,295 total is higher than LOTR’s $2,916,919,070. But it’s five films to three. Averaging them per film, HP comes out at $897,097,259 and LOTR $972,306,356. But however you count it, they’ve both done really, really well. And if we were to adjust total grosses for inflation, I suspect James Bond would still come out on top, given how many films there have been, and Star Wars would be right up there as well.

Warner Bros. produced and will distribute Half-Blood Prince. According to Variety it has delayed the release in order to beef up its summer schedule for next year, which is weak on blockbusters as a result of the recent Writers Guild of America screenwriters’ strike. Up to now, Terminator Salvation had been its only “tentpole” picture for that season. Released in July, 2007, Order of the Phoenix grossed $938,468,864, and WB is hoping that history will repeat itself. So it’s a strategic move, not one that has anything to do with problems relating to the production of the film itself.

That means we’ll get the last three HP films in the summer of 2009, autumn of 2010, and summer of 2011, the latter two dates being announced for the halves of The Deathly Hallows. Conveniently enough—if all goes as planned—The Hobbit will appear in December of 2011, with “Film 2” announced for December 2012. So after a long pause in the wake of The Return of the King, the two franchises sort of come together again, with the LOTR series reviving just after the HP films end. Given that Warners will be distributing The Hobbit and “Film 2” for New Line, it will be virtually guaranteed some big hits during that period.

By the way, Daniel Radcliffe appears on the cover of the upcoming issue of Entertainment Weekly, which contains its annual fall movie previews. Bad timing, but I would imagine that Warner Bros. can get another cover story next summer for its HP release. Time Warner owns Entertainment Weekly.

(I’m currently plowing through the many legal documents that have been filed recently in the Tolkien Trust’s lawsuit against New Line, including the texts of the 1969 contracts for the deals selling the film rights of LOTR and The Hobbit to United Artists. I hope to post a summary within a few days.)

Variety reported today that Harry Sloan, Chairman and CEO of MGM, has signed a contract to continue for another three years in those positions. I’ve written before about Sloan, who is generally credited with having helped New Line Cinema and Peter Jackson reach a settlement of Peter’s lawsuit against the studio. That in turn led to the announcement that MGM and New Line would co-produce The Hobbit and “Film 2”. The Variety article has a good summary of what Sloan has accomplished in building up MGM in the three years he has so far been in charge of the company.

Wandering around Comic-Con on its closing day, July 27, I spotted a couple of LOTR franchise items. Above, the “Lord of the Rings Masterpieces II” trading cards on display in the Topps exhibit. Below, a gamer tests “The Lord of the Rings: Conquest” in the EA booth. (Sorry the image isn’t very good, but that booth was jammed, and I couldn’t get a good angle.) It didn’t take much foresight for me to predict in The Frodo Franchise that the franchise would live on for years, albeit in a reduced way. Here, along with the Sideshow Collectibles photo in the previous post, is the proof.

Yesterday I posted a more general entry about Comic-Con on “Observations on Film Art and film art,” with a brief reference to the Hobbit panel and a photo.