Fans Will Have A Good Chance to Be In The Hobbit!?
Peter Jackson included the names of the members of the official Lord of the Rings fan club in the credits for the DVD releases of the LOTR trilogy. Guillermo del Toro might actually top him, promising that fans will actually have “a good chance” to appear on screen in The Hobbit and/or the announced sequel.
“In either of the two films, [fans] have a good chance of being there,” del Toro told MTV, later adding: “We will set some rules and some contests and some fans will definitely get the chance of being extras.”
But I’m sure that only a few extra roles will be made available to contest winners. And while the production might require a few thousand faces for a huge crowd shot, I’m sure computer generated people would be used in such an instance. But wouldn’t it be cool if Guillermo invited a couple thousand fans to be extras on the movie? But how many fans would fly to New Zealand on their own dime to be in the film?
Who’s the Celebrity Pooper Scooper?
Celebrities aren’t generally known for picking up after themselves, let alone their animals, so we have to tip our hats to this poop-scooping star who made a point of cleaning up after his dogthereby keeping the streets of New York City clean and giving his boldfaced bretheren a good name, at least for the time being.
So just who is this considerate actor?
It’s Elijah Wood.
The Lord of the Rings star and his girlfriend, Pamela Racine, took their Chihuahuas (one is out of frame) for a stroll after lunching at L’Orange Bleue Cafe in SoHo.
And while we’re totally on board with his plastic baggy campaign, we’d like to ask one more favor of Elijah: Pick up those leashes! It’s a concrete jungle out there, and if your dogs aren’t flattened by a taxi cab they’re likely to be squashed by a pack of stiletto-wielding fashionistas.
Next Futurama DVD has a title - VIDEO
The next Futurama direct-to-DVD movie has a title. According to an interview with Futurama producer David X. Cohen, the subtitle of the movie will be Bender’s Game. It’s a pun on the classic sci-fi novel Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.
A preview of the video is on the latest release, The Beast With a Billion Backs, and involves the Planet Express crew caught in a Lord of the Rings-type alternate universe. It’s the Futurama team’s first foray into fantasy.
Cohen did state that the title has very little to do with the subject matter of the DVD. “We were all kind of shocked when we started talking about the idea, that we hadn’t done it before, really,” Cohen said. “It almost seems obvious that it’s something our fans would like.”
Bender’s Game is going to be released later this year. Having already enjoyed the first two direct-to-DVD releases since Futurama’s resurrection, I am looking forward to this one.
Second Hobbit Film Not Certain
Things are never simple when it comes to The Lord of the Rings. There was lawsuit after lawsuit, and now the second Hobbit film, that was supposed to be a bridge between The Hobbit and Fellowship of the Ring, could be at risk.
It seems there is an issue of copyright, which Guillermo Del Toro points out:
In the four books that are in the domain of the copyright, there are appendices and ideas and things that can be traced without risk. But I have to be careful not to overstep. We believe there is a way to create this film and make it interesting, but it’s too early.
So they can create a second film from the ideas and appendices that exist, however they have to be careful about wandering into other areas they don’t own the copyright to.
Del Toro also went on to say:
We believe there is a second movie, if there isn’t, there will not be. If we find it, we will shoot it, but by God, if we do not find it, we will not shoot it. I am anxious to shoot the book, and I’m willing and able to dedicate myself to shooting the [second film].
It seems at the moment nothing is certain and they still do not know whether to split The Hobbit into two movies, or contain it into one.
Guillermo Del Toro says on the TORn message boards that things will get started once he has finished his Hellboy 2 rounds and Peter Jackson has finished work on The Lovely Bones.