On TheOneRing.net, MrCere has posted a long account of Peter Jackson’s various statements during the Comic-Con events centered around him. MrCere gives a lot of personal thoughts on events, both past ones and possible future ones. He’s been involved in the fandom for a long time and knows his subject, so the piece is well worth reading.

A friend of mine has written up a nice account of his experiences at Comic-Con. He’s Jonathan Kuntz, who teaches in the University of California at Los Angeles School of Theater, Film and Television. Being a lot closer to San Diego than I am, he makes it to Comic-Con every year.

Jonathan and I go way back, to the point where I’m not even sure how we met (which no doubt says more about my aging mind than about how memorable that occasion was). But we were both part of a group of American film and television scholars who went to Beijing in 1988 to give lectures at a summer school for Chinese film critics. That was then an annual event, though less than a year later the Tiananmen Square massacre occurred, and the next year’s lecture series was canceled.

With Jonathan this year was his daughter Rebecca, a Comic-Con newbie. I definitely remember my first (and so far only) encounter with her. Rebecca was 10 or 11 at the time, making part of a small group having Chinese food in LA. Her eyes came close to popping out of her head upon hearing that I had not only met Peter Jackson but interviewed him for an hour. Clearly born to geekdom. She is already planning to return to Comic-Con next year. Perhaps I’ll get there, too, and Jonathan, Rebecca, and I can grab time for a meal. Chinese food, maybe.

Jonathan’s description of their Comic-Con adventures doesn’t add anything to our knowledge of what Peter Jackson is up to (though they did make it into Hall H to hear PJ’s talk, after a two-hour wait in line). Still, it’s a nice little vicarious look at the con for those of us who weren’t there.

Variety has a nice little wrap-up of Comic-Con that mentions Peter Jackson a couple of times. It sounds like PJ still feels a connection to the fans, even though to many of them his vast success may have made him seem less accessible than he was back in the days when he was still making LOTR. One remark quoted in the story: “I wish you could take the energy here and bottle it and give it to Hollywood to drink.”

Variety also praised Peter’s ability to connect with the fans during his mentions of The Hobbit:

Much has been said over the years about the importance of respecting the geeks.

Jackson proved just how to do that last week when he took the time during Sony’s panel for “District 9″ to update the crowd on “The Hobbit,” of which two films are planned.

He explained the intricacies of Hollywood’s development and casting process, of studio politics and the difficulty of getting movies made. It was a sincere explanation that had the crowd captivated.

For my comments on what Peter said about The Hobbit at Comic-Con, see here.

[July 28: On TORN, Rebecca alerts us to a video of PJ's comments.]

[July 31: TORN has now posted Comic-Con's own HD version of PJ's comments.]

Peter Jackson is giving out a lot more news at Comic-Con that we might have expected. I thought he might insist on sticking to the upcoming horror film District 9, which he produced, but he was generous with bits of news on all his projects.

Some of the accounts circulating on the internet are old news-like informing us that The Hobbit is to be made in two parts, with the first one due out in December of 2011. Here’s what I’ve gleaned that really is news, at least to me. Some of these accounts will overlap, but just so we can parse the subtle nuances . . . more »

For a day last week–July 16 to be exact–the internet was aquiver with rumors (notably here and here) that Comic-Con would feature an announcement about who would play Bilbo in the Hobbit films. This was all based on rather tenuous speculations about who was coming to Comic-Con, and, I suspect, some wishful thinking.

Then, on July 17, Peter Jackson and others in the know squelched these rumors. As reported by Empire online, Peter said, “No, we won’t be announcing Bilbo for a little while. We’re starting to think about casting, but we’re knee-deep in the script right now. And when we do go to actors, they’re probably going to ask to see a script, so we’re powering ahead with getting the first draft done.” When Empire asked what his next project after The Lovely Bones will be, he replied, “I haven’t yet decided what I’ll be directing after that. At the moment we’re concentrating on writing a couple of little movies with Guillermo [Del Toro]. A couple of small films! (Laughs) And that’s going to take us another few months of writing to do. But we are developing a couple of projects which are potentially films that I’d direct for next year. Temeraire is still on the cards. But those are really taking a second place at the moment…”

This makes me wonder about the status of the second Tintin film, which, as far as I know, Peter is still slated to direct. Perhaps the studio wants to wait until the first film is released before absolutely committing to a second.

Anyway, the Bilbo non-story is one example of why I don’t post casting rumors on this blog.

Even without the prospect of a big announcement about Hobbit casting, though, yesterday I start feeling distinctly regretful about not going to Comic-Con this year. A year before, I had flown to San Diego, settled into my hotel, and gone to the Wednesday evening preview reserved for those of us with four-day passes. Now the event proper has started.

I thoroughly enjoyed the 2008 Comic-Con. Highlights included meeting and talking with John Howe, seeing Richard Taylor again, however briefly, participating on TheOneRing.net’s panel of speculations on The Hobbit, signing books and chatting with fans, wandering the halls, seeing the previews for Bolt and Up, and so on. I blogged about it here and here.

(As to the panel, I still think that my suggestion of Mark Ruffalo as Thorin was a good one. That’s a suggestion, mind you, not a rumor.)

In fact, the TORN people were kind enough to invite me to participate on their panel again this year. I felt I couldn’t justify the expense and time a second year in a row, especially since I so recently got back from a whirlwind trip to Europe. So I very reluctantly said no, though I hope to return to Comic-Con when promotion of The Hobbit begins in earnest.

For this year, though, I’ll be following the events from afar. Obviously TORN will be a key source of Hobbit-related news, and for more general coverage, here’s Variety’s index of its of Comic-Con stories. Even as I type, the TORN panel should be recently over, so I expect to be reading about the results very soon–and no doubt wishing I were in San Diego right now!

Thanks, by the way, to TORN for the real news–not rumor–that Hobbiton is being rebuilt so that the plants will be ready in time for principal photography. See photos and links here, here, and here. Seems like old times!

[July 29: TORN has just posted a three-part video record of its Comic-Con panel. It's a well-done half-hour condensation of what was originally an hour-long panel.]

I’m sure most of you know by now about the fanfilm, The Hunt for Gollum, that went online yesterday. Written and directed by Chris Bouchard, it brought together a volunteer but definitely not amateur cast and crew. It’s very much movie verse and definitely worth a look.

It’s available only for streaming, not for download. Since it’s a fanfilm, the makers clearly want to be cautious that they stay within widely accepted fair-use policies and don’t step on the toes of the Tolkien Estate or Tolkien Enterprises. There are texts at beginning and end stressing that the film was made by fans for fans and is not earning money in any fashion.

The official website for the film apparently had technical troubles after posting the film, and it is now available in HD on a site called Dailymotion (38 minutes). If your computer or internet hookup can’t handle HD, there’s an option to play it in standard format. There’s also a making-of short (about 25 minutes). The official site has various pages that provide a lot of production background.

If you like the film and want to find out how the world has reacted to it, check the blog about the film. The May 4 entry contains lots of URLs for reviews and news stories. Some of these are live links, but for some reason most aren’t. I found, however, that cutting and pasting the URLs worked.

In Chapter 6 of The Frodo Franchise, I talked about fan websites, fanfiction, fanfilms, and so on as a sort of unofficial wing of the franchise. I think a lot of fans will consider this a filling-in story that sits alongside Peter Jackson’s trilogy quite comfortably. Congratulations to the filmmakers for having achieved such success with what was obviously a long labor of love! Over 200,000 views in the one day it has been up, at least according to the Dailymotion site.

On my recent trip to Jordan, one of the books I took along to read was Melissa Anelli’s new title, Harry: A History. The cover describes is as “The true story of a boy wizard, his fans, and life inside the Harry Potter phenomenon.” It’s one of those books that’s ideal for traveling: a lot of prose in small print packed into a light-weight, compact volume.

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I come to you from the lowest spot on earth. I mentioned that I’m on a tour of Jordan. In the last couple of days we’ve seen the northern sites of Jerash and Pella, and this evening we checked into the Marriott on the edge of the Dead Sea. Actually, the surface of the sea itself is 410 meters below sea level. My floor of the hotel is more like 385 meters down.

Even from such a remote spot, I am able to connect to the internet, so I send you all greetings and a couple of links. more »

My first Comic-Con experience has been pretty exciting so far. I can’t say that generalization applied to standing in the Press and Professional line to get my badge—though it can’t actually have been more than about 25 minutes and was handled pretty efficiently. The line of people waiting to get their purchased four-day passes seemed to stretch to the horizon. Once I had my badge, I headed inside for the Wednesday night preview of the contents of the enormous exhibition hall. more »

I am getting seriously excited about going to Comic-Con next week. As I’ve said, it’s my first time. I’ll be participating in TheOneRing.net’s Hobbit project panel at 10:00 am on Friday, July 25. We’ll be in Room 32AB. This is TORN’s first participation at Comic-Con since five years ago. Back in 2003, The Return of the King hadn’t come out yet. Indeed, at the time of the Con, stars like Ian McKellen were back in New Zealand for pick-ups, and the third film was still in frantic, behind-schedule production. I was patiently waiting for pickups to be over so I could go down to Wellington in the hope that some of the filmmakers would have time to talk with me for my book. more »