Newsweek has a regular feature, a single column running up the right side of a page in the early section of the magazine, where they ask artists about their favorite works in their own medium. Novelists get asked about their five “most important” books in their lives, the one they were disappointed with when they reread it, and the one they would want people to share with their kids. Back in July of last year, timed to coincide with the release of Hellboy II, Newsweek featured Guillermo Del Toro in their “A Life in Movies” column. (It’s in the July 7-14 issue, p. 16.)

GDT’s answers to the question are revealing. We all know the man is widely read and enjoys a broad range of culture, from pop genre items to classics of literature and art cinema. Not all the titles on the list would be familiar to those who haven’t studied film history. Here’s a rundown. more »

Variety has a couple of news items that caught my eye, each with a rather tenuous connection to LOTR.

First, the Twilight franchise is going strong, with the announcement that the third film in the series, Eclipse, has been greenlit by Summit Entertainment–the lucky little company that couldn’t find a distributor to handle Twilight and ended up distributing the film itself. The second film, New Moon, hasn’t even started filming yet, though it will soon. And who is directing it? Chris Weitz, who made The Golden Compass, New Line’s intended franchise to follow up LOTR. If that film had succeeded, he most likely would not be available to join this more successful franchise.

Second, The Dark Knight has become the fourth film to gross more than a billion dollars internationally. As you all no doubt know, Titanic was the first, with the apparently unbeatable total of about $1.8 billion. The Return of the King remains at number two, with $1,119,110, 941, according to Box Office Mojo, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, sits not far behind it at number three. The latest Batman installment crept above the billion mark by being released into Imax theaters on January 23, the day after the Oscar nominations were announced. All this is in dollars not adjusted for inflation. If we did adjust for inflation, RotK would be further ahead than it now seems.

Being on the “Weta News” mailing list, I just received an announcement of Weta Workshop’s new website. I haven’t had a chance to do more than take a quick look at the main features, but it looks like a rich and varied site. There are little biographical articles on a lot of the Workshop’s employees, five podcasts that include interviews with Richard Taylor and Matt Aitken (who is in charge of the model scanning at Weta Digital), a news section, images of public art created by the Workshop, and a lengthy list of all Weta’s past and current projects–one that contains films I hadn’t known about. Of course there’s a shop as well, but that is far from being the main feature of this site. There’s a page for showing off the Workshop’s various services. Click on the “Showreel” link for a fast-paced few minute montage of film footage and behind-the-scenes glimpses. You can also sign up in the “My Weta” section and participate in various ways. There’s a lot to explore!

By the way, the Hobbit page lists it as in “early pre-production,” i.e., the scripting stage.

Last August I reported that Dr. Ruth Harley, who had been the head of the New Zealand Film Commission, had moved over to direct the newly re-organized Screen Australia. Those are the parallel agencies that help fund local films in their respective countries.

I interviewed Ruth twice for The Frodo Franchise and got invaluable information on the impact of LOTR on the local film industry.

Now the Australian newspaper The Age has talked with Ruth about her approach to building up the lagging local production. It seems apparent that she will do much the same as what she did in New Zealand: urge filmmakers to consider what kinds of films theater owners would like to book in order to make money. As the author points out, the most successful New Zealand films now outperform those from Australia, proportionate to their relative populations. “Buoyed by a string of internationally acclaimed and financially successful films, most famously Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, New Zealand now supports a thriving domestic and offshore film industry.”

The article goes on, quoting Ruth: “Offshore production allowed New Zealand to build skills and infrastructure. These days, she says, Peter Jackson needs local producers to use the studio and post-production facilities he developed for the Lord of the Rings films – ‘and boy do the locals want to work with his talent and machine’.”

Even five years after the third part of the trilogy appeared, LOTR continues to influence the domestic industry of New Zealand–and now perhaps, in a less direct way, Australia as well.

Variety announced today that Gordon Paddison has started a new company and that Peter Jackson has signed a deal with it.

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David has just alerted me to a story posted on Film & Video on December 12. That’s the day when the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still came out. Weta Digital was a major contributor to the CGI (computer-generated imagery) for the film, and the story gives quite an interesting and entertaining account of how Weta contributed to the lengthy design process for the robot Gort and worked on other elements. Clearly Weta technicians have been coming up with new techniques in the wake of LOTR and Kong.

I haven’t seen the new film, having fond memories of seeing the original 1951 version during a re-release during the late 1950s and being scared out of my wits by that robot. I should have a look at the new version, though. The reviews haven’t made it sound too appealing, but I’m sure it has really neat special effects.

MSNBC’s website has just reported on two rulings that were given yesterday in the Tolkien Trust’s lawsuit against New Line Cinema over money allegedly owed from the LOTR film trilogy revenues.

One ruling by Judge Ann I. Jones sets a March 3 deadline for both sides to exchange documents. According to the report, “The papers will be reviewed by both sides in preparation for their appearance before a mediator in mid-March or April to try and settle the case.”

The Trust also was given the right to “wait until an expert they hire has finished documenting their claims for a 7.5 [percent] royalty from the [sic] ‘The Two Towers’ film before presenting that information to New Line.”

Another passage reads, “Lawyers for the trust are seeking hundreds of thousands of documents and say they have received less than half of what they need.” Apparently New Line plans to turn over most of what remains by the end of this month. The studio’s lawyer claims that the defense has turned over 60 percent of requested documents so far. “But he said some of the documents are harder to find than others.”

This exchange of documents is part of the “discovery” phase, where both sides gather evidence, often requested from the opposing side, to bolster their cases.

The case has seen some other developments over the past few months, and once I get a look at these new rulings, I plan to post another of my long summaries of what has been happening.

In the meantime, this is the first I have heard that there may be a meeting of the two parties before a mediator within the next two months or so. If the case can be settled in that way, we won’t have to wait until the October 19 trial date–which could always be delayed. If some major piece of evidence has turned up, it might make one side or the other more interested in a settlement.

(Thanks to TheOneRing.net for posting this link!)

The New Zealand Herald‘s website, which over the years has given us so much information on the LOTR trilogy and other Kiwi filmmaking activity, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. They’re doing a bunch of 10-best lists and have posted Timeout editor Russell Baillie’s choices of the top ten films of the past decade. He doesn’t include LOTR, though whether that’s because he doesn’t consider it a New Zealand film or just doesn’t rank it in the top ten isn’t explained. Of course, virtually every Kiwi thinks it is, but fair enough, technically it’s an American-produced film.

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I was sad to see a report on Variety‘s website that special-effects house The Orphanage, founded in 1999, is going out of business. It’s a medium-size company, located in San Francisco’s Presidio, that contributed a major scene to Iron Man and did some effects for The Pirates of the Caribbean and The Day after Tomorrow.

Among sci-fi/fantasy fans, The Orphanage’s main claim to fame was creating the digital effects for the hit South Korean monster movie The Host (which is a clever, engaging film, for those of you who haven’t seen it). Originally the plan was for Weta Digital to provide the CGI for the film, but it was working away full throttle on King Kong and had to decline. Weta Workshop, however, collaborated on the creature design and initial maquette, which was scanned by The Orphanage, located in San Francisco in the Presidio. Two of its experts gave an interview available on the San Franciso Film Festival’s website, referring briefly to Weta.

As Variety puts it, “But midsized vfx shops like the Orphanage are under pressure as they lack the resources of the bigger shops to undertake advance research and development and can be underbid by ‘garage’ shops with lower overhead.”

Weta Ltd., of course, evolved from one of those “garage” shops to its current position as one of the top three effects houses in the world, as a result of LOTR.

As I pointed out in my book, small post-production centers have sprung up in several countries with little domestic film production of their own. No doubt many of them have far lower overhead than a company operating in the Presidio (also home to Industrial Light & Magic). It’s a pity to see The Orphanage fold, and one can only hope that its animators (which numbered 160 at the firm’s height) will find jobs in the current economy–perhaps someday some of them working on The Hobbit.

I just ran across an interview with Rod Perry, the creative director and co-president of The Ant Farm. That’s the company that makes a lot of the trailers for Hollywood’s big releases, including LOTR.

He makes an interesting remark about LOTR: “Perry recalls how relieved executives at New Line Cinema felt when the very first focus group — yes, trailers get focus-grouped, just like movies — for the trailer the Ant Farm made for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring responded enthusiastically to it.” Given how little finished footage those executives would have seen by then, I can imagine that they were relieved! Anyway, check out the interview to read about other trailers and the process by which they’re made.