LOTR Movie news archives from August 23, 2000 through September 14, 2000

If you've been following all the Tolkien movie news sites, then you're aware that someone posting as Khamul the Easterling has been posting audition scripts on Decipher's Lord of the Rings message board for about two weeks. Today the scripts were taken down and Khamul was apparently banned.
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Tolkien fans were introduced to Robyn Malcolm a few months ago when it was revealed the New Zealand actress would play a small role in Peter Jakcson's 'The Lord of the Rings'.
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In a somewhat bizarre looking cartoon, artist Murray Webb has drawn a new caricature of Peter Jackson, writer/director/producer/possible cameo actor for the upcoming 'Lord of the Rings' movies.
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A very remarkable Web site, The Hobbit Hole provides a 3-dimensional look at Middle-earth via Apple's Quicktime technology. We were quite impressed with what we saw.
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Kaspian has contributed a lengthy and informative review of the upcoming 'Lord of the Rings' board game to Tolkien Online. [more]

Tolkien Online found the latest casting call article for Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' movies from The Southland Times.
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The legacy of J.R.R. Tolkien may debut at the 2000 Summer Olympic Games when a New Zealand athlete with the nickname of 'Hobbit' makes her appearance despite her dashed hopes for a role in Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings'.
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Everything you might ever want to know about Liv Tyler can now be found at Intomovie.Com's new Liv Tyler page.
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While checking out Sir Ian McKellen's Web site for another story, we stumbled across a picture of a magazine cover we hadn't seen before.
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Tolkien-Movies.Com has reproduced an article from a Scottish newspaper which reveals a surprising detail about Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' movies.
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Matthew Bass, operator of Tolkien-Movies.Com, a New Zealand-based fan site, has an unnamed friend who has agreed to ask 2 questions of Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' film crew.
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In a move that is sure to inspire non-students to ask their friends, relatives, and neighbors to get them into campus theaters, New Line Cinema has promised to include Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' in a 10-film deal with YouthStream Media Networks.
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Many people regard Tom Shippey to be Tolkien's greatest critic and defender. Shippey actually knew Tolkien himself, and also taught at Oxford in the same position Tolkien once held. So Shippey's latest book is being widely hailed as a must-buy. Here are some observations about the faithfulness of Shippey to Tolkien's literature.
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At Xenite.Org's request, several other Web sites joined the search for the facts about the Angela Dotchin story. TheOneRing.Net has heard from Ms. Dotchin's manager.
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Ben Milder and Joshua Truitt, creators of The Tolkien Trail, have added a new Rivendell section to their interactive fan site.
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It's been a wacky 24 hours. We heard that Xena: Warrior Princess was being cancelled and then, hooray!, the fans had saved the day and the show is not being cancelled. And we've learned more about Angela Dotchin than you can imagine, but we still have no idea of whether she'll appear in George Lucas' 'Star Wars: Episode II' or Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings'.
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Grab a pencil and paper and take notes, 'cause this one is as confusing as ever. Some of the Xena/Jack of all Trades fan sites have been reporting since August 13 that Angela Dotchin, co-star of Jack of All Trades, has gotten an unspecified role in Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings'.
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How did Arnor and Gondor come to be, and what were the fundamental differences between the characters of the two realms? And what was the contribution of Numenor to their founding? A discussion of the origins of Arnor and Gondor explores the dynamics of Numenorean culture and how it laid the foundation for the two realms in exile.
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Tolkien Onine and Tolkien-movies.com got a sneak peak at a picture of what seems to be Bill the Pony.
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We asked Keith Stern, the Webmaster for Sir Ian's Web site, if he had heard anything about the actor playing Dumbledore in 'Harry Potter'.
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A special edition of the 12-book series The History of Middle-earth is being published in 3 volumes, due out in October 2000, April 2001, and October 2001.
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Tolkien-Movies.com is reporting that Sir Ian McKellen has been announced in various magazine ads (according to a spy report) as the wizard Dumbledore in the upcoming 'Harry Potter' film.
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Cirdan says New Line Cinema told him that Australian actor John Noble will play Denethor in Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' production. [more]

Variety is reporting that United Artists has entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the third major and sixth largest theater chain operator in the United States to do so this year.
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Kenneth Magnusson is a Tolkien fan with a mission. He wants to create an Internet radio station which plays only Tolkien-inspired music. His first selections aren't necessarily earth-moving but they aren't bad. The neat thing is that he's soliciting requests from other Tolkien fans.
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There is nothing grainy about the picture Tolkien-Movies.Com picked up from its sister site Realm of the Ring. Construction on the Minas Tirith is well underway.
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The Southland Times has published a brief interview with Elijah Wood and Sean Astin, conducted by telephone.
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'As for others' concerns about the details of the screenplay and characterisation,' Sir Ian McKellen writes in response to a fan inquiry in his September 5, 2000 e-post on Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings', 'I take what is useful (call it 'research') and then plod on with my own interpretation, guided of course by the director and the other participants in front of and behind the camera.' And isn't that the best way to cope with the flood of opinion and 'research' which flows across the Internet?
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The much-discussed board game based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, with artwork by artist John Howe, has been reviewed by Cirdan on his German-language Web site.
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Tolkien-movies.com seems to have scooped everyone in reporting that both Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Ian Holm may land roles in a historical New Zealand film in 2001.
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The Nelson Mail is reporting that 15 local police officers accepted a three-day contract to work as drivers on Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' films without following proper regulations.

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The Evening Post says Keith Harrison cut a deal with Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' movies to use a harp for two weeks in exchange for two bottles of wine.
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A New Zealand Herald story recaps the latest news and revelations about Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' production in New Zealand.
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This week's article at Suite101's Tolkien and Middle-earth topic looks at how entertainers in Middle-earth may have had to follow in Elvish footsteps.
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Steve Babb and Fred Schendel wowed Tolkien fans at Dragoncon with their (as-yet unfinished) rock video set to 'The way to her heart', a song about Aragorn's love for Arwen from their first CD, 'Journey of the Dunadan'. Now they are hard at work on a new CD, tentatively titled 'Live from Middle-earth', and they are sharing the magic in special ways.
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TheOneRing.Net has published a spy report with several photos of the new Minas Tirith set. Tolkien purists will breathe a sigh of relief as they see that the walls of the city will indeed be black and sheer, as Tolkien described.
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Gregory Lee Kenyon moved to Los Angeles after amassing a wide variety of regional theatre credits in his native New England.
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Various Tolkien movie news sites observed that September 2 was the anniversary of J.R.R. Tolkien's death. It appears that not everyone in the mainstream news media is as ill-informed as Tolkien fandom has come to believe they are.
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Thousands of Tolkien fans have enjoyed the intense discussions of Xenite.Org's White Council, reputedly the Web's oldest Tolkien discussion. Today the old message board was retired and a new forum unveiled.
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Nine hooded horsemen were caught on camera as New Zealand shoppers looked on in astonishment. 'Is it the Lord of the Rings?' a woman dared ask. 'Yes.'
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German Webmaster Cirdan was invited to a secret screening of 22 minutes of LOTR footage.
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In a fascinating look at how the sets are being designed and constructed for Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' movies, E! Online's Force of Hobbit On Location segment for September reveals that yet further departures from Tolkien's vision of Middle-earth have been decided upon.
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TheOneRing.Net has picked up a news story by the Otago Daily Times concerning 30 black-garbed riders filming a battle scene in Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' movies.
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The Nelson Mail is reporting that Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins), Sean Astin (Sam Gamgee), Orlando Bloom (Legolas), and Sean Bean (Boromir) have landed at Takaka Aerodrome and gotten underway in filming their latest scenes for Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings'.
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Beren over at The Company of the Ring has a dream: he wants to visit Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' production when filming is scheduled to be close by.
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Tolkien Online is carrying two brief articles about rainouts and mysterious filming plans in the Otago region of New Zealand.
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The Press is engaging in a legal battle with Three Foot Six Productions over who owns the rights to photographs taken of Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' sets taken from public access.
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Readers who enjoyed Pat Murphy's Hobbit-inspired novel There and Back Again will have a chance to meet her at Chicon 2000, the 58th Worldcon being held this weekend.
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Ringzone.Net has put up a new photo from the New Zealand Herald (we could not find it in today's online edition).
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The Nelson Mail has published an article about the filming of Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' movies on the Mt. Olympus location and the impact the crew has already had on the local community.
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Some very fortunate school children in New Zealand got the chance to talk with one of the people working on Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' movies by telephobne.
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In what could be called a mini Postergate scandal, The Evening Post has withdrawn from sale a poster comprised of pictures published in a recent edition.
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We've been looking at the CinTBobine photographs that several Web sites have published recently and it occurs to us that the hobbits are shown wielding swords at Weathertop.
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They don't say anything we haven't reported here first, but ZDNet's Gamespot recently published a brief article on the lawsuit.
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Most people may not associate 'Beowulf' with J.R.R. Tolkien, but it was his pivotal defense of the epic Old English poem which turned the literary world on its ear and inspired new generations of researchers to take the work more seriously.
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David Grenewetzki, President of Sierra On-Line, has now confirmed that a lawsuit has been filed by his company against the Saul Zaentz Company.
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This week's article at Suite101's Tolkien and Middle-earth topic takes on the division of Arnor.
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New Zealand Infotech has published a brief article detailing the computers WETA just acquired for final rendering on Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' movies. [more]

Although nothing critical appears in his answers to fans about work on Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' movies, Sir Ian does let slip a couple of tantalizing tidbits about what fans can expect to see in the films.
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Tolkien Online found an article by The Press at Stuff with the first pictures of the Edoras set at Mt. Potts, and now TheOneRing.Net has posted some spy pictures as well.
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Elemental Films has just announced a major update to their Ancanar Web site. [more]

Alerted by fan concerns over the recent report of battle scenes to be filmed at the Edoras set on Mt. Potts, Beren at The Company of the Ring contacted Three Foot Six Productions.
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