I’m in Bologna, Italy at the moment, attending a wonderful annual festival of restored films called Il Cinema Ritrovato. I’ll be home next week and blogging more regularly.

In the meantime, here’s an interesting little item. Show-biz commentator Anne Thompson has posted the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows trailer under the title “Trailer Watch: Harry Potter Finale Looks Very Lord of the Rings.” (The first part comes out in November.) She remarks that it “looks dark, dangerous and epic: Lord of the Rings scale.” A few of the shots do indeed remind me of the trilogy.

The first part of Deathly Hallows is due out in November, nine years to the month after the first HP film premiered. The Fellowship of the Ring followed closely on Sorcerer’s Stone, coming out in December of 2001. At the time the two “wizard” films were seen as competitors, though both were put out by studios owned by Time Warner. Now it appears that with the delays on The Hobbit, the Tolkien film franchise will outlast the HP series. But it’s interesting to see the latest HP installment being measured against LOTR.

There have been reports that Spyglass Entertainment and Summit Entertainment were in the lead to take over the running of a restructured MGM. Now Variety is reporting that Lionsgate is another candidate for that role. Since Variety is behind a subscription walls, here’s the story:

Lionsgate has re-entered the mix of possible partners for beleaguered MGM.

Informal merger talks between MGM and Lionsgate — which have been held off and on for years — have taken place recently, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

Both companies had no comment. Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer and Vice Chairman Michael Burns, who would probably run the combined studio, have participated in the discussions but haven’t made a formal proposal.

The interest from Lionsgate comes with MGM seeking to survive, possibly via a partnership, as a way of dealing with its massive $3.7 billion debt. MGM’s believed to have met recently with other candidates who could run the studio and bring in production funds, including Spyglass Entertainment toppers Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum and Summit Entertainment.

For Lionsgate execs, making an official offer for MGM would require that Carl Icahn support such a deal — even though Icahn’s promised a proxy fight for control of the Lionsgate board. Icahn has recently boosted his stake in Lionsgate to 31.8% via a hostile tender offer.

Earlier this year, Icahn criticized Lionsgate management for making an official bid for MGM, believed to be $1.4 billion. Lionsgate withdrew as a bidder in March when MGM asked for a sweeter offer and Time Warner remains the only official bidder.

Lionsgate also disclosed in a regulatory filing this year that it had held talks with Icahn last year about possibly combining forces for a takeover bid for MGM but those talks went nowhere.

The combination of Lionsgate and MGM would result in a studio with a library of more 7,000 titles. MGM’s assets include the James Bond franchise and half of “The Hobbit” films. Lionsgate, which is nearing $2 billion in annual revenues, would bring in a film production operation that focuses on low- and mid-budget projects such as Tyler Perry and “Saw” films with 13 to 14 titles a year; and a TV producing arm that includes “Mad Men,” “Weeds,” “Nurse Jackie”;

MGM put itself up for sale last November. Its debtholders are expected to need at least several more weeks to sort out MGM’s future, which will probably require the company to reorganize in a pre-packaged bankruptcy.

Lionsgate needed only three business days to persuade its lenders to amend terms of the revolving credit facility after Icahn increased his stake in the company to 31.8% through his tender offer. Icahn’s move had placed Lionsgate in the position of a possible default but the company was able to negotiate terms that carry a “favorable” interest rate of the London Interbank Interest Rate plus 2.5% with other key financial terms and provisions unchanged.

As the story mentions, Time Warner’s bid, apparently in the neighborhood of $1.5 to 1.7  billion, is still in play, in case MGM’s debt-holders decide to sell the studio rather than restructure it.

Today’s Los Angeles Times has an interesting story on the influence of Richard Wagner on film scores. The Lord of the Rings score gets mentioned, with a quotation from Doug Adams.

I was alerted by Magpie over on the Message Boards of TheOneRing.net that Doug Adams has revamped his blog site in preparation for the publication of his long-awaited book on the music in the LOTR trilogy. Have a look here. Doug specifies that his book will come out this fall. Even those who don’t want to read close analysis of the musical tracks may want to buy the book anyway to get the accompanying CD (which I gather won’t be sold separately). It contains: “unused, alternate, and early-draft music from FOTR, TTT, and ROTK … and even a little discussion with Howard Shore and myself.” Doug has long had access to Shore for interviews, and there’s no one better qualified than he to create the definitive book on the subject: The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films.

I know a lot of us are eagerly looking forward to seeing this book at last. Some of the delays have been due to the formidable challenges of putting together an elaborate publication like this.

Doug has been very mysterious about the publisher. I’m curious, since of course this is a late entry in the continuing LOTR franchise, which this blog in part exists to update. Is this one of the official tie-in books licensed by New Line? Or is it an independent book that had isn’t licensed but has had to pay for the individual rights to reproduce the various musical notations, illustrations, and other material from the films? I’ll of course post a notice when the book becomes available, but in the meantime, you can follow Doug’s blog, which contains a link to his Twitter page.

On June 10, Variety broke the news that another prominent child’s fantasy will take advantage of the filmmaking facilities in Wellington, New Zealand:

“The Wind in the Willows” is being developed in a live-action and animatronics version by RG Entertainment for a fall shoot in New Zealand, with Peter Jackson’s visual effects company Weta Workshop onboard.

Ray Griggs (“Super Capers,” “I Want Your Money”) will direct and produce the $30 million feature, based on the 1908 tale by Kenneth Grahame. Richard Taylor will handle special effects, and Kim Sinclair will be production designer.

This isn’t exactly a big-budget spectacle, but it comes at a time when political controversy is again heating up over the government’s 15% rebate for foreign productions spending significant amounts of money within the country. The New Zealand Herald posted a story about it yesterday. It states that the government has paid out around NZ$200 since 2003, including NZ$45 to Avatar‘s producers and NZ$49 in King Kong‘s producers. (The higher figure for Kong presumably comes from the fact that more of the filmmaking went on within New Zealand.) The loss to the people of New Zealand comes to NZ$36 million over that time. It’s not clear what kinds of calculations went into those figures. Do the critics take into account the amount of money spent by the productions within the company and the taxes consequently paid by the people who work directly or indirectly for the productions?

Given that other countries, including Australia, provide similar rebates, tax breaks, and other forms of support, New Zealand would be likely to lose a fair amount of business from overseas without the rebate scheme.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy was made before the scheme went into effect. Its success and the prospect of having the first Chronicles of Narnia film made in New Zealand both had a major impact in the government’s decision-making process. (I discuss the situation as it developed until about 2006 in the last chapter of The Frodo Franchise.) The Wind in the Willows has been named by some of the people arguing against the rebate.

Today Variety posted a long story about the changes CEO Jeff Bewkes has made in Time Warner. No mention of The Hobbit, though the story does mention that Bewkes doesn’t seem inclined to raise its offer, rumored to be in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion, to buy MGM.

The summary includes a section on how Time Warner has been expanding into the video-game business:

Time Warner’s M&A activity mostly has focused on opportunistic, low-risk buys of videogame publishers and developers with creative talent and assets that Warner Bros. needs to expand its games biz. This year, it acquired a majority stake in London-based Rocksteady, which was had been working with the studio on a Batman game; and Boston-based online gaming outfit Turbine.

That company, through a quirk of licensing, controlled multiplayer online gaming rights to “The Lord of the Rings” franchise, while Warner Bros. had a lock on every other “LOTR” gaming format. Last year, it swooped in to buy “Mortal Kombat” maker Midway Games out of bankruptcy for $49 million after Sumner Redstone lost $800 million on the company. Warners also bought Bothell, Wash.-based Snowblind Studios last year.

The vidgame activity is a good example of the kind of strategic “tuck-in” deals that Bewkes is looking for to enhance existing operations. Time Warner’s revenue from vidgames rose from $100 million in 2007 to $510 million in 2009, according to the company.

The LOTR rights mentioned are, I believe, based on the novel (Turbine’s online game) and a combination of the novel and film (Warner’s holdings). It seems likely that eventually The Hobbit video-games will also be handled in-house. That business, including its LOTR component, seems to be doing very well for the company.

A short time ago Ian McKellen tweeted twice:

1. The films will get made. I suspect we’ll start shooting at end of this year. about 4 hours ago via web
2. “Hobbit” sets are ready, script ready and movie is casting this month. Fans are not to worry. about 4 hours ago via web

I try not to post rumors, but Ian is closer to the production than most. Plus I think we all need a little encouragement at this point. Though the end of the year seems a long way off.

Readers no doubt read the news the TheOneRing.net broke Sunday, revealing that Guillermo del Toro has decided to bow out of directing The Hobbit. The delays in getting the project greenlit by Warner Bros. and MGM were frustrating to a director who famously is used to working on several projects at the same time.

Today Stuff.co, the New Zealand news site, has a story on Peter Jackson’s interview with the Dominion Post:

“If that’s what I have to do to protect Warner Bros’ investment, then obviously that’s one angle which I’ll explore,” he said. But stepping in as director would be difficult as he had signed writer and director contracts with Hollywood studios for two other films, with one likely to begin next year. “The other studios may not let me out of the contracts.”

Peter made some comments about when filming might begin, in the light of this dramatic development:

Jackson said The Hobbit’s US$150 million budget was a ballpark figure, but it could be higher if it was filmed in 3-D.

Jackson said November was now the earliest start date for shooting, but it depended on finding the right director. “I just don’t know now until we get a new director. The key thing is that we don’t intend to shut the project down.

“We don’t intend to let this affect the progress. Everybody, including the studio, wants to see things carry on as per normal. The idea is to make it as smooth a transition as we can.”

Of course, the idea of Peter directing The Hobbit is an attractive one to fans, though I would hate to see him forced into doing so simply to save the project.

The stuff.co post has a good summary of the Hobbit situation and its background.

(Thanks to Paulo Pereira for sending me the stuff.co link.)