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MGM to Produce "The Hobbit"
pawnder writes, "According to two sources, MGM and New Line are partnering to produce 'The Hobbit' as part of MGM's new plans to create blockbuster movies again. From theonering.net: 'Over the next few years, MGM is planning to release half a dozen films, some in the $150 million to $200 million-plus range. Studio is ready to unveil such high-profile projects as "Terminator 4"; one or two installments of "The Hobbit," which Sloan hopes will be directed by Peter Jackson; and a sequel to "The Thomas Crown Affair" with Pierce Brosnan.'" With or without Tom singing, is what I want to know.
Since all the actors are older, how are they going to portray them as younger looking? I'm mostly wondering about Gandolf and Gollum.
NO MORE SEQUELS!!!
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
A sequel to the thomas crown affair! I am so excited.
Yep.
One for there
One for back again
clean division.
I know, jokes aside i agree. However, this is hollywood, and epics=$$$.
Few are those who will understand the reference to Tom singing without having read the Hobbit and Tolkien's related works. As is often the sad truth about interpretations of books, sections get omitted for brevity and plot considerations. Unfortunately, this has a tendency to remove some of the depth present in the original work. Such is the case with Tom; this is why his name is unfamiliar whereas Bilbo et al are near universal in recognition.
Here are two rather good sources of information about Tom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Bombadil
http://www.cas.unt.edu/~hargrove/bombadil.html
I really think that the movie industry is out of touch with this one. The more spent on a movie, the bigger the risk is, since there is more up-front cost to recupe. So rather than going for new unproven ideas, they rehash the same ideas, and do sequils.
The problem is that the movie industry has grown so bloated that the idea of tightening budgest, and making movies on the cheap that don't need to grose as much to be profitable isn't even considered, instead they simply throw more money at the problem.
If it's dead, you killed it.
I thought Peter Jackson was quoted as saying he'd love to do it! (right after king kong?) And if they're saying the studio would want him to direct it. Umm, the only thing left I can see is financial terms. After the boatload of money he brought in for the LoTR trilogy*, I can't see them saying no to his terms
* yes, I know it's not really a trilogy, but that's what we're calling it cuz he made 3 movies, ok!?
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First of all, technically there was only one LOTR book, which was split into three separate books for publishing purposes. The subdivision of "books" inside the novel denoted a separation that was more akin to chapters than actual whole books. Second of all, Jackson isn't doing anything on this project yet, so why are you blaming him? Lastly, Jackson made three GREAT films out of the single-book LOTR. I will applaud any effort he makes, if indeed he does make one, at making The Hobbit into a film or films.
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare -- a pumpkin with a gun."
There were only 3 LoTR books. Not 6.
6, usually sold two by two in three volumes.
You're on notice, buster: One more show of geekish ignorance and I'll have your nerd badge!
You can't take the sky from me...
Um, how is Pixar's stuff the same movie again? What exactly do Monster's Inc. and The Incredibles have in common? Or are you saying that all family friendly CGI cartoons where the good guys win are the same movie?
C'mon folks. I know that it's really hard to click through to the article, but can we at least read the summary?
One or two installments of "The Hobbit," which Sloan hopes will be directed by Peter Jackson
Looks like it's the studio that wants two in installments. Since Jackson hasn't even been hired onto the project, he can't be making decisions about it. I'm not a Jackson fan, but please, give credit to the formulaic movie execs where credit is due.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
I thought it was packaged as one book way back in the day, but the binding couldn't hold the massive tome so the publisher asked Tolkien to split it up into more manageable parts, so he went to three and that's where the part titles came from...
I'm missing the Tom reference here. Tom Bombadil -- left out of Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy -- wasn't in The Hobbit. And I kinda liked the "Road Goes Ever On" music -- or maybe that's just my childish remeberences of the cartoon version.
LoTR is actually one novel of six books published in three volumes.
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You cannot wash away blood with blood
Directed by Mel Brooks:
History of the World, Part Zero
The term "book" can have two meanings:
1. A physical book, a.k.a. a volume.
2. A larger division of a work, which can include its own chapters.
It's not uncommon for a single novel to be divided into anywhere from 3-5 "books."
Les Miserables, for instance, has either five or six "books," but AFAIK it has always been packaged in one volume (often abridged -- that thing is massive). Never mind the many "books" of the Bible, which is itself one book.
So arguing over 3 books vs. 6 is simply arguing at cross-purposes.
Um, how is Pixar's stuff the same movie again?
He's just bashing $POPULAR_THING to define himself by rejecting what is popular.
It's much easier to define yourself by rejecting things other accomplished than by accomplishing things yourself, you know.
You can't take the sky from me...
Oh yeah money, loads and loads of money.
God spoke to me.
Cut a computer a little slack.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I very much agree with scrameustache. Also, the idea of a "female, SEXY terminator" is LAME right off the bat. Terminator 2 was one of the best action films of all time, and one major reason for that was Linda Hamilton. She did all the heavy weight acting. 3 had simply no business being made. And the fact that they're THINKING of making a 4 is just outrageous and I hope that moviegoers simply give up on movies all together and strangle the industry, like what's happening in the music industry. you can fool some people sometimes, but you can't fool all the people all the time. -keith
Sure, a man who is no longer on Her Majesty's secret service needs a new gig, but some roles you can can't live twice.
What are they going to do? Have Russo take the spy who loved her to Russia to test his nimble fingers at lifting a golden gun or some diamonds. Yeah, that's just what the doctor ordered, no? If they keep on stealing stuff forever, soon they'll be trying to rake in the moon!
That may be fine for your eyes, but I predict a thunderous ball of poo. Just live and let it die already.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
No, technically it's still just one book published as three. Let's get our terminology straight here. The "books" used to divide The Lord of The Rings are not at all the same as the term used to describe the books of, say, the Harry Potter series, which were meant to be published separately and to stand alone. Again, they're more like chapters, and were never meant to be read separately or taken out of the context of the overall novel.
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare -- a pumpkin with a gun."
Numenorians are specially graced by the Valar, giving them a lifespan many times normal man (among other advantages). Non-numenorians lived Earth-like lifespans.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
In the movie, Aragorn randomly hands the four hobbits four short swords right before the Nazgul attack at Amon Sul. He doesn't explain where they come from nor how he came to have them. Later, Merry uses his to stab the Witch King in the back of the knee, which despite the admonition "no man can slay me," seems to be pretty effective at hurting him and rendering him vulnerable to Eowyn's coup de grace. But nobody knows why.
Now, Tolkien, in true Tolkien fashion, had a back-story for everything, and the Tom Bombadil episode provided the back story for those swords. (It also did other things, but I won't go into that here). The four hobbits escape Buckland in the Shire into the adjacent woods where Bombadil rules. They have various adventures, but as they're just about to get back onto the road to Bree, they are taken by wights who drag them into ancient barrows. Bombadil comes to rescue them, and gives them swords he finds there. The barrows belonged to warrior kings of the Northern Kingdom, who forged their swords with spells to break the enchantments of the Witch King of Angmar, their mortal enemy.
So, at the moment of truth on the plains of Gondor, Merry's sword was the only one around that could have possibly broken the Witch King's invulnerability.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Director Joel Schumacher will be recasting the role of Gandalf with a younger actor. Val Kilmer and George Clooney are on the short list.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I think Peter says in one of the documentaries he didn't particularly enjoy the Scouring of the Shire. There's a better chance of the Silmarillion making it to the screen. We'll have to live with Galadriel's mirror images. But yes, an adaptation of the Tripods trilogy would be very cool. I'd also like to see Asimov's Foundation series, but given the monstrosity that was I, Robot,I wouldn't have high hopes. I LOVED Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials, and I'm praying they don't screw up The Golden Compass, and they make the rest of the trilogy.
Your knowledge of The Lord of the Rings is astounding. I could only have been impressed more had you responded in Klingon.
The greatest thing about Jackson's LOTR trilogy is the amount of respect he & everyone else involved had for Tolkien's original text.
No!
Not to be a stick in the mud about this but Jackson seems to have gone out of his way to take some of Tolkien's original work and warp it. Things that he could have easily have left as written were rewritten to suit his "needs" but not the needs of the story line.
I can understand why some material had to be cut, i'm not complaining about that. But what was up with the reaction of the treants? Was this a lame attempt at comedy? Why didn't Jackson let Gollum die in the end dancing with the ring as Tolkien had wrote it? It seemed so much more classic and it had the taste of a good moral. Instead Gollum has to be given a shove instead of us being able to take home the original spirit of Gollum and the ring essentially destroying each other... It just seems like such a classic ending.
This isn't to say that I think that Jackson did a bad job with the pictures but I don't see some of it as respectful. As I said, modifying a work because of limited resources is one thing, changing things for no obvious purpose is downright disrespectful.
As for The Hobbit... It'd be great to see Ian Holm as Bilbo. He did fantastic work in the original films and I think he's a fine actor. I'm just not sure about his overall health in taking on the part of such a young role.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I was reading that, and thinking, "Yeah, it could be really good."
And then I suddenly thought: to Peter Jackson, dwarves appear to be figures of fun.
There's thirteen of them as central characters in the Hobbit.
Thirteen.
It's going to be a couple of hours of spectacular cgi and dwarves falling over isn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if extra scenes were inserted where they all have to get past some gap or other obstacle, and Gandalf tosses them over, while they all protest about dwarf tossing. And I can only imagine the scene where Bilbo helps them all into barrels and then tosses the lot of them.
*sigh*
That film would have sucked a whole lot less if those involved had given a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys about Douglas' original writings.
Including, perhaps, Douglas Adams himself? He was quite pleased with how no two versions of his work were ever consistent; with the radio programs, books, and TV series all having unique quirks, making the movie match any of them just wouldn't quite ring true. He was fairly heavily involved in production, up until his untimely death. I'll agree it wasn't his best work, but I think his attitude on deadlines was a liability to the end result.
But yes, Jackson will be the best choice for the Hobbit. The fun question is, will the studios ever get daft enough to want to take the Silmarillion to the silver screen?
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
That was Ian the Grey. X3 starred Ian the White.
This isn't to say that I think that Jackson did a bad job with the pictures but I don't see some of it as respectful.
I must agree that I used to feel the same way, however, now that I look back on the movies, I am impressed at how well he brought the story to life, and really, how much he left *IN* unmodified. I agree that according to the book it would have made more sense to have gollum dance and fall in, but for the drama of a non-Tolken audience it does not work as well, those who have not read the books demand more.
Along those lines, when I saw the first movie in the theatre on opening day, the scene where Arwen takes Frodo across the river annoyed me because it was not cannon, Glorfindel was not there, and Arwen utters an incatation and it is not (apparently, I dont speak elvish) the work of the ring of water that raises the river.
But, having said all that, when Liv Tyler cries out: "If you want him, come and claim him!" I sat up in my chair, and like almost every other geek in the theatre I shouted "YEAH!!!!"
I was dissapointed in the first movie when I left the theatre, and I and all my other geek buddies were complaining about how it violated Cannon... Then about 2 days later we all sat around and agreed that Jackson HAD done a good job, and that we were unrealistic to believe that everything could have been like the books, because some of what Tolkien did was great from a world creation perspective, but bad from an authors narration perspective. Once we decided that, we ran back to the theatre to watch the movie again. We loved it the second time around.
I look at the differences, and I agree with you, I would have preffered the rings destruction and gollums death to be like that in the book. However, the audience would not get it. With Jacksons ending you see the hold that the ring has on Frodo, you see him being malicious and twisted like gollum, you see the hatred of the ring bringing an end to itself.
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"The Hobbit" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077687/ was by Rankin-Bass, done as an animated movie geared towards children (as the book was) and compressed to fit in a two hour TV slot with built-in ad breaks.
"The Lord of the Rings" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077869/ was done by Thorn EMI, was a cell over live action animation and was geared as a full length movie. This movie basically covered the first three "books," that being all of "Fellowship of the Ring," and the first half of "The Two Towers."
"The Return of the King," http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079802/ was another Rankin-Bass made for TV movie. It almost picked up where the Thorn-EMI LotR left off starting with Samwise trying to rescue Frodo from Cirith Ungol.
It looks like we're going to have something very similar with a Hobbit movie made by a different production company than the LotR movies.
Personally, as long as they get Glen Yarbrough to sing (well, he's 76) "The Greatest Adventure" and "The Road Goes Ever, Ever on," I'd be happy.
Any bets that they replace a couple of the 13 dwarves with women? :-)
I'm wondering if this would be live action or animation? The original was actually fairly scary when I was a child, and to some extent it still is. The newer live action Hobbit movies have nice effects but they just don't have that fright of the original. But I'm sure some Peter Jackson lovers will have plenty to argue about this.
Bad man! Both off topic and putting a spoiler in a headline. May the fleas who crawl across shit bite your ass, then bury their eggs in your nostrils.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
ANGELS, and minor ones at that, not gods.
Eru, the One, is the sole True God of Tolkien's mythos, and the Valar are "demiurges" (either minor godlings or arch-arch-angels -- presumably the name derives from the greek "demiurgos" and refers to the Valar's roles as the creators of Middle-Earth). Maia are equivalent to angels, so Gandalf is sort of like one of the brawling angels of christianity (think Micheal, for example) that get involved directly with human affairs.
Morgoth was an evil valar; Sauron, his lieutentant, was an evil maiar... so technically Sauron's just a very powerful balrog with good PR.
All thoroughly explained in "The Silmarillion", which JRRT thought was not ready for publication (and I have to agree, though there are some tasty bits starring Turin Turambar).
Not so well explained is how JRRT intended this to tie in with christianity, although I believe he explicitly identified Gandalf's resurrection with Jesus's at some point.