News Archive

Following Return of the King’s success at the Oscars, New Line have made some slight alterations to the cover of the DVD due for release on 25th May. You can see the new artwork at DVD Answers.

The Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus has announced its adaptation of The Hobbit as an opera. You can see the performance in Toronto on May 13-16, in Charlottetown (PEI) June 25, in Moncton (NB) June 27 and in Halifax (NS) June 29. Dean Burry is the composer. You can read much more on it all at CBC News.

This article at TheStar.com is about Optix Digital Pictures, a Toronto based company, who color graded the Return of the King movie. Don Schmeichel, their chief financial officer reveals that “It was right down to the wire” as the movie was still in their workshop on 20th November (the world premiere was 1st December).

BBC Radio One has a short article about the RotK DVD, which will be hitting shelves around the world on May 25th. The article also mentions that the DVD will be around 15 minutes longer than the cinema version, although I think there’s some confusion (perhaps with the extended edition) there.

Wellington NZ, paid tribute to its Oscar winners in a low-key ceremony today. They were presented with glass goblets and Peter Jackson said, “If there was an Oscar for the best city to make a movie in, it would be Wellington.” You can read the full article at BBCi.

Today, 18th March, is Brad Dourif’s 54th birthday. There are some great pictures in the gallery of Brad as Grima Wormtongue and you can read his bio in the cast list .
Many happy returns Brad.

“Take Our Word For It”, the internet etymology magazine, has an article in its current issue about the derivation of the phrase “Middle Earth”. This includes interesting information about where Tolkien derived this term from and its roots in European folklore. You can read the full article here.

It is our pleasure to unveil the new layout for the Council of Elrond Encyclopedia! The changes are going to make browsing much easier and the new layout is far more attractive. We will also be acknowledging a * Contributor of the Month *, every month, along with annotating any particularly interesting bits of Encyclopedia-related news! Please come in, take a look, and contribute if you’d like! You can view the new layout here.

On Friday 26th March, Andy Serkis will be in Manchester, UK to sign copies of his book, “The Lord Of The Rings: Gollum – How We Made Movie Magic”. Two articles at Manchester Online, reveal how he won the part and some of his experiences of playing Gollum including how, “Playing Iago and Gollum at the same time is bad for your mental health.” You can read the articles here and here.

Decipher’s new cards for their Lord of the Rings trading card game will feature some of Tolkien’s characters that did not appear in the movies. These include, Tom Bombadil, Goldberry, Elrohir and Elladan. The photo images for the cards have been created by Weta Workshop. You can read the full story at Yahoo.com.