EXCERPT:
Jackson is Christopher Columbus here, sailing right off the edge of the map.
Whatever else happens, however these movies succeed or fail artistically and financially, nobody can ever claim the powers behind them didn’t swing for the fences. Mark this down and I sure hope somebody is taking notes, because the events of the last couple of weeks are going to be legendary. Soar or sink, the ambition at work here just boggles the mind. If your mind isn’t boggled a little, you aren’t fully grasping what happened. Also, how good are these behind-the-scenes stories going to be?
FOR THE STUDIOS
FOR THE STUDIOS
Large professional movie studios (big businesses) like MGM and Warner Bros. spend a lot of money but the do so by making smart risks and minimizing exposure. They plan and they execute the plan and they market and the have a lot of moving parts to make that happen.
The two “Hobbit” movies had titles and marketing plans and product tie-ins like toys and books and all manner of things. By now items are well in the pipeline. Licensing and marketing and publicity are working hard to make sure things go right in December. They don’t leave it to chance or wait until the last minute.
When Jackson wanted to change and when he convinced studios to do it, the ground shifted under the feet of hundreds and maybe thousands of people. Film 1 books for example are well into production with those now dated movie titles in mind. Consider how complicated this becomes for book publishers who feature certain characters from Film 1 that might not be in the film any more. The same goes for action figures. The same goes for publicity tours and what if marketing laid plans to have support characters at premieres or press junkets when they no longer even appear in the film? I am sure I am missing a lot of people and plans that were disrupted on Monday.
To Jackson’s credit, he just wants to make what he feels is the best possible movie and he is willing to stick his neck out to do it.
Don’t think for one second that the studio just ships out a shorter movie and calls it a day. A gigantic machine, imagine the one that carried the space shuttle to the launching pad, was in motion with all its moving parts and the studio was willing to put it to a stop, change its direction and start it up again at a quicker pace than it is used to. This wasn’t done lightly and multiple studios had to sign off on it.
Countdown to Downton Abbey 3. Shirley MacLaine says there was no need for anyone to tell her they expected a bawdy aspect to her DA character. She added that's because it has always been her personal style..and don't we Americans know it. That's why the first news of her addition to the DA cast was greeted with a low moan from me - not in a good way;) teehee. I'm certain her and Violet will be hilarious opposite each other in the upcoming series.
The Hobbit’s Thorin Oakenshield tells us what happens when you get a dwarf drunk...by Meredith Woerner
The Hobbit's Richard Armitage plays the stoic Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of the dwarves and a very strong presence throughout The Hobbit. But how will this lofty, Lordly character play with today's movie audiences? We asked, and Armitage answered — plus find out what other songs we'll be hearing from Armitage in the movie!
Is [The Hobbit] going to be a little bit more musical than The Lord Of The Rings?Richard Armitage: Yeah, yeah, and there are other songs in it [besides the one we've already heard]. Which I was kind of hoping for. But I thought, "are they gonna shy away from that?" But I think the culture of the dwarves, the dwarves are kind of raucous dirty, filthy beasts. And when they party, they party hard. So there are a few drinking songs in there.
What makes a good drunk? A smelly dwarf — and boy, do we smell.
Oakenshield is kind of this classical Lord figure in the books, how do you update this character for modern audiences? I never really thought of updating it. I actually did the opposite. I thought of it as more kind of Greek tragedy. I looked at Shakespeare, a lot of my preparation I was looking at Henry V and bits of Richard III, just to find roots in British literature that were deeper. But I think making it feel contemporary the big themes of the story — loyalty and trust and camaraderie — I think those things are contemporary.
There's been talk of splitting the second film in two, do you have strong feelings about that? Um, I have no concept of what you're talking about. But I think the book has it's natural points of peak and trough, so hopefully our story will musically honor what Tolkien was writing.
Where do [the current two movies] split? Nobody's quite sure yet. We've kind of shot it as one long story, so that will be one of the surprises we may get when we see the final films.
Saw It on Twitter..
Earliest known usage of "O.M.G." in a letter to Winston Churchill, 1917: http://twitpic.com/ag6zhn
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