Today’s nugget is an interview that director Guillermo del Toro did with IGN about his special effects philosophy for the movie. In a phrase, he’s going to use a little bit of everything. Stating that he will follow Peter Jackson in using some more “real” effects, del Toro said, “you have to be very careful not to rely on a single tool – and this is another thing that I share a passion for with Peter Jackson. We both are huge fans of 'old-world' techniques like maquettes, models, miniatures, paintings – and in the case of The Hobbit, I do intend to continue this trend and bring much more animatronics into the mix.” I’m hoping the animatronics that he uses are those birds from Disneyland. Wouldn’t it be cool if Bilbo walked by some electronic fowl singing “The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room.” No, that would be stupid, nevermind.
That doesn’t mean that CG will be absent from The Hobbit. He noted, "I think that some creatures are better served by being completely CG and others are better served by being completely animatronic – and others are only possible if you mix the two." Makes sense to me. Of course, even if he said that he was going to only use sets constructed out of Lincoln Logs, I’d probably say “OK, buddy, you’re the expert.” Of course, there are some things you don’t screw with, and Gollum as CG is one of those. Del Toro said that he couldn’t see any reason to not make Gollum CG in The Hobbit. “I think that it worked perfectly on the [Lord of the Rings] trilogy and if it ain't broke, why fix it?" Well said.
Denethor not interested in the two films Jackson and Del Toro are making:
While most of the Lord of the Rings cast has been adamant about being ready and willing to do just about anything Peter Jackson wants, there’s at least one castmember who won’t be involved in the two Hobbit movies he’s currently making. John Noble tells MTV that he’s got better things to do.
Noble played Denethor, the crazed Steward of Gondor in the Lord of the Rings series. This character has nothing to do with the first movie Jackson and director Guillermo del Toro are making, since it’s based on The Hobbit, and they never go anywhere near Gondor in it. But the second movie they are doing involves all sorts of ancillary material, and takes place between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring. Denethor could end up playing a key figure in whatever the LOTR team is cooking. Noble though says, “If they said, ‘Would you come and play Denethor again, I would have to say, ‘No, I’m doing [new J.J. Abrams television series] ‘Fringe’! And I certainly couldn’t play a younger Denethor or even Echelion now that I’m an older John. Not even with makeup.”
Viggo interested in returning for Del Toros Hobbit films:
MTV asked him what was up with those Hobbit movies and he said, “I haven’t heard anything… I met [Guillermo] once years ago, but haven’t talked to him since.”
Odds are he won’t be in the first movie anyway, since it’s supposed to stick fairly closely to “The Hobbit” novel, in which his character of Aragorn makes no appearance. If there’s a place for Aragorn, it’ll be in the second movie which is still a long, long, long way off.
That probably explains why people like Ian McKellan, who would appear as Gandalf in the very first movie, has been running around telling everyone that he’s already in. They’d have to get him locked up first. The good news is that Viggo still seems keen to do it. He affirms, “Obviously,” he said. “I would rather have the chance to play that role myself since I originated it on film than have someone else do it.”
The good news is that Viggo still seems keen to do it. He affirms, “Obviously,” he said. “I would rather have the chance to play that role myself since I originated it on film than have someone else do it.”
Good. Characters in serie-movies played by different people take away a bit of the screen magic. I'm curious how these films will be.
Legal issues seem to plague a number of movies- watchmen and so The Hobbit:
Tolkien’s son Christopher Tolkien has long been opposed to any adaptation of his father’s work. He hasn’t seen the Lord of the Rings movies, but he hates them. Recently, he’s been petitioning the courts to halt production of The Hobbit. At issue is cold hard cash. He says New Line Cinema owes him money. Whether or not that’s true, today things took a step forward when according to the AP, a judge did the exact opposite and instead chose to bar Tolkien’s estate from seeking punitive damages against New Line.
They had been seeking, in addition to a shutdown of The Hobbit, more than $150 million in payouts, and here’s where things get a bit confusing. The AP’s story says that even though they’ve been barred from seeking punitive damages, an LA Superior Court Judge has also ruled that the Tolkien Estate have established a legal basis for a fraud claim against New Line. No, I do not know what that means. Is there a lawyer in the house? Put those law degrees to work and email me with an explanation. How can the Tolkien Estate can be barred from seeking damages while at the same time getting the go-ahead for a fraud claim, and should we be worried or not? Someone tell me how to feel!
Whatever it means, the trial is now scheduled for October of 2009. By then The Hobbit should be well along in production and I’ll be a quivering, weeping mass of legal confusion
Del Toro talks a little about his two LOTR movies:
Guillermo del Toro, director of the two forthcoming prequels to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, insists that The Hobbit and its untitled follow-up film will be two installments that tell "a continuous journey."
"The reality is that we stopped talking the first movie and second movie, and we just started taking about the movie - the two episodes, or two parts, as if they were a single piece of narrative," del Toro informed MTV.
The filmmaker continued, "We don't even call it the bridge movie, we just call it 'The Movie.' And this is great. When we found what reverberated, and we found it in one of our virtual meetings - we understood. It's a movie."
Del Toro is currently working on the scripts for the two movies with the Oscar-winning LOTR team of Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens.
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