The Frodo Franchise by Kristin Thompson
 
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July 7 : 2010

On a happier note

On July 1, The Dominion Post (Wellington’s newspaper) ran a story about the friendship between Guillermo del Toro and Ian McKellen. I suppose this story has been linked elsewhere, but I didn’t see it on TORN, so I thought I’d mention it. It’s partly about how Ian is staying at Guillermo’s 2nd house, his “man cave,” in Wellington, while performing in Waiting for Godot.

Ian also let drop one crumb of information: “He understood Sir Peter Jackson was in Britain casting for The Hobbit, while negotiations continued on who would direct the two-part film in Wellington. Though nobody has been officially cast in The Hobbit, Sir Ian and Andy Serkis, who plays Gollum, have said they will star.”

I suppose this statement has to be regarded as a rumor until we get some sort of confirmation, but it’s more hopeful than the other information, also mostly rumors, that I posted about yesterday.

By the way, the brief clip that accompanies the story makes no mention of The Hobbit.

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    The Frodo Franchise
    by Kristin Thompson

    US flagbuy at best price

    Canadian flagbuy at best price

    UK flagbuy at best price

    Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
    hardcover 978-0-520-24774-1
    421 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 12 color illustrations; 36 b/w illustrations; 1 map; 1 table

    “Once in a lifetime.”
    The phrase comes up over and over from the people who worked on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. The film’s 17 Oscars, record-setting earnings, huge fan base, and hundreds of ancillary products attest to its importance and to the fact that Rings is far more than a film. Its makers seized a crucial moment in Hollywood—the special effects digital revolution plus the rise of “infotainment” and the Internet—to satisfy the trilogy’s fans while fostering a huge new international audience. The resulting franchise of franchises has earned billions of dollars to date with no end in sight.

    Kristin Thompson interviewed 76 people to examine the movie’s scripting and design and the new technologies deployed to produce the films, video games, and DVDs. She demonstrates the impact Rings had on the companies that made it, on the fantasy genre, on New Zealand, and on independent cinema. In fast-paced, compulsively readable prose, she affirms Jackson’s Rings as one the most important films ever made.

    The Frodo Franchise

    cover of Penguin Books’ (NZ) edition of The Frodo Franchise, published September 2007. The tiny subtitle reads: “How ‘The Lord of the Rings’ became a Hollywood blockbuster and put New Zealand on the map.”