McKellen to Play Gandalf once again!
This article might include some rather old news to all hardcore Tolkien fans out there. This will be especially true if you’ve been following the numerous blogs and websites out there that dedicate themselves to writing about the latest rumours and news regarding the upcoming film adaption of J.R.R Tolkiens epic masterpiece “The Hobbit”. I read an article about this on one of the “Paparazzi” websites in my country (the kind on which you can spend 32 weeks reading about how fat Britney has become).
Ian McKellen played the legendary Gandalf character in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. If at this point you have no idea what I’m talking about, you need to slap yourself in the face and pray to Tolkien for forgiveness. Since the release of the movies, I can’t see how anyone could have passed this trilogy by.
In any case, this is basically an update for those of you who were completely disconnected with the pre-production of the film “The Hobbit”. So here it all is in a nutshell (am I using that right? Well… when in Rome!). “The Hobbit” is a prequel to the “Lord of the Rings” saga and tells the epic tale of Bilbos journey for treasure. Expect a wizard and enough dwarves to pass around (that also sounds kind of wrong).
“The Hobbit” is going to be split into 2 films, the first being released in 2010, the second in 2011. There have been rumours that the first film would be “The Hobbit”, but the second an untold story, not directly adapted from a Tolkien novel. This rumour was shot down on April 24th by Yahoo News, saying that the new films are based on the book ONLY.
Peter Jackson will NOT be directing this time around due to timetable conflicts (he is directing Tintin for Steven Spielberg). He will however be executive producer along with Fran Walsh. Confirmed director is Guillermo del Toro (Pans Labyrinth, Blade 2). The project will once again be shot in New Zealand and WingNut and WETA (Workshop and Digital) will make a return as well.
McKellen has NOT been confirmed for the role of Gandalf, but has said that he loves playing this role and that “it is not a job you say NO to”. Peter Jackson has also noted that he could never imagine anyone else playing this role.
Well thats pretty much it. I guess I got a bit excited, so I did a bit of research. Hope you’re looking forward to these films as much as I am.
Comments(65)
yeah, i hooked reeged up with the inside info =)
Yeah.. Great news indeed.. I love the LOTR universe, the first trilogy was great and hoping for a good prequel too..
OMFG!!! Great news m8.
I heard he confimed the day before last?
Even though Peter Jackson is not directing, I’m glad to see he still has his part in it. I heard too many negative things about Spiderman 3, and was afraid The Hobbit would turn into another cash cow, but now my doubts have turned into anticipation. I can’t wait.
I think this news is the best news I have seen for a long time in rlslg. i am very excited about the new film
i hope they wont delete scenes as they did in LOTR and we can watch a full movie.
I have no doubt that del Toro will do as an outstanding job as PJ.
I’m happy to hear about the new LOTR’s prequel. I’m even happier to hear there’s a tintin movie coming out. As a kid, I fondly remember reading the comic books. Heh.. I remember the teacher telling us to borrow a book out of the library. Unfortunately she never considered Tintin to be worthy of being a “book” lol
You do realize Peter Jackson isn’t directing because he asked for money? He complained that from LOTR he was jipped out of how much money he deserved for it. I am happy to hear of the movie, but I wonder how faithful they will stay. Remember the added scenes in LOTR?
i love del Toro’s work.this has to be good
can’t F wait
well well…
Hobit gotta be the best example how tolkien sucks in “deus ex machina”
The true writter would laugh at him so hard…
got in trouble? gandalf dissapears 10 min before problem and safe you at the end…
again in trouble? lets do that again… gandalf dissapear and come back just in time to save your ass…
Still not enough? well lets make it one more time but this time with bilbo..
And when 4 time it would be too much evean for village idiot he wount quit but bring down the eagless to save the day… never mentioned never in story.. just suddenly appears and save them from burning trees…
Tolkien was a Genius in creating imaginary world, no doubt there, but his solving tough situation sucks…
at least in hobbit
definitly hobit compared to LOTR is like children farry-tale compared to top of thrillers.
but i am definitly looking forward to see it, especialy dragon and battle of five armys…
well, i knew about this release and what can i say…i can’t wait
but unfortunately it’s just as 13 said…compared to the LOTR trilogy “The Hobit” it’s just a fairy-tale because, after all Tolkien wrote this book especially for his children
mckellen’s gandalf outplayed all other chars in the movies..
don’t get me wrong, the movies were superb, they gave me a feeling of “oh yea, this looks/feels just like i imagined it reading the book back in the days”.. an “most” actors fit into their roles just perfectly (except maybe frodo, who – you would have thought it impossible – was even 10x the whiner in the movies as he was in the books)..
but mckellen as gandalf.. he just blew my mind.. he was so much cooler than the original gandalf in the books.. and well, ol’gandy was the coolest anyway.. maybe only melkor, feanor or beren would compare (that would be cool, wouldn’t it? jackson doing some movies on stories from the silmarillion?)^^
In fact, McKellen has been confirmed for the role. http://www.cinematical.com/2008/04/30/yay-sir-ian-mckellen-confirms-gandalfs-return-in-the-hobbit/
It was all over the net. Last week in fact. The research you did wasn’t as deep as you may have thought. I hope in the future RLSLOG will stick to the “scene release info” for which it is famous, and not try to imitate real newssites. No offense, but that’s just what I think, atleast if this is the quality of reporting.
I am proud to say that i couldn’t finish watching LotR 1 because it was painfully boring and i never saw the 2 sequels
omg @17 *kille the unbeliver*
cant wait for the next 2 movies
Hasn’t Hollywood made enough out of this garbage yet? Heaven forbid they should make a movie not generated by computer. Total dribble and about as exciting as watching paint dry.
Its all about Middle Earth, the trees and mountains and landscape in general, nevermind the story.
Im gonna spend these years just waiting for the movie, like i did before with lotr. i was so fckin thrilled when hobbit was announced and with Weta W, Serkins, Ian, Peter and Fran and great storyteller Guillermo(Pans Labyrinth was one of the best movies i saw in years) i just cannnot wait..
#15 that would be great, but …which one? Leithan? Narn I Hurin? Fall of Numenor, or maybe even stories before Arien was sent up the sky … it cannot be done, this time for real
Zorz: thank you for sharing this.
ReeGeed thanks for sharing Middle Earth enthusiasm!
Yeh – If in doubt go and read superherohype before posting old news that isnt even up to date.
Rslog is so great why paste mainsstream news when this place is famous for having the newest links on other stuff?
The Hobbit needs as much help and maybe added and deleted scenes as possible – being a pretty simple kids book – as much as staying faithful to the medium – sometimes things can be improved and sometimes ruined depending on the makers.
Looks the the right people are in charge ..anyone else would arse it up.
The.Hobbit.DVDRip.XviD-HNB
Plot:
Local Shire Hobbit Bilbo Baggins, relative of Frodo Baggins, is living a quiet, peaceful life until Gandalf the Grey walks into his home with a band of wandering dwarfs and drags poor Bilbo into a quest that entails defeating a dragon, a three way battle of men, dwarfs and monsters and, most importantly of all, lead Bilbo into contact with a peculiar ring that has had and will have a great impact on the future of their world.
Release Date:……4/23/2010
DVD Release Date:..12/06/2010
Runtime:………..170 min
Genre:………….Adventure | Fantasy
Rating:…………9.3/10 (91,061 votes)
IMDB:….http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903624/
———————
Hope we see this… sometime…
Ron Paul is playing Gandalf?
I knew about this about a week ago but didn’t think it would matter on here so didn’t contact anyone
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/30/mckellen_hobbit/
~BW
Awesome. The Hobbit is gonna be great, although I’d like Jackson to direct it. Ah well.
agree with 16 tbh. Out of date news as well meh
i hate TOLKIEN. all he did is a bunch of crap
enuff of the fkin midgets already!
@27, thanks, even though the quality was poor, it was worth seeing it for Samuel L Jackson. Didn’t manage to see it first time round
@28:
STFU…
Great news, but how can they justify making 2 films out of the Hobbit,? It can quite easily be done in a 90 minute movie, the book is short enough as it is. The idea of dragging the story over 2 movies with added padding sounds terrible, prepare to be bored out of your brain.
I’d buy THAT for a dollar!!!
lol yeah is there a cam of it yet? (joke)
Great bit of news lad!!
okay the stupid pop-up just closed down firefox?
i lost like fcuking 2 hours of work!!
for fcuk sake guys, please take down the popup!
@Fire learn to use a real browser.
What pop up? lol
Yay.
Too bad I already knew. ;3
Haha,
just finished watching the second episode of the trilogy
DLed the 720p trilogy pack
Ok, old news, but think about it it was so obvious, who else could play the part Danny De Vito? And what pop up was this poor fellow talking about?
Lets just hope the budget spans hundreds of millions of dollars!
Yay. Guillermo del Toro is a great choice. Pan’s Labyrinth was brilliant
To those who think The Hobbit was a child’s story in comparison to the LOTR, you are quite correct.
Tolkien wrote these for his kids. They were much younger when he wrote The Hobbit so of course it is more kid friendly. As they got older he got more detailed and grown up with the storyline.
I certainly enjoyed it as a child. Can’t quote see how they can pad it out to two movies though.
sweet,cant w8 for this,possibly my fav book of all time,better even than LOTR
2 friking years!!!why cant they just keep this all a secret until its finished *sigh* xD if only it was possible
and to the people complaining about it being over 2 films…if uv read the book then you’ll know it could easily span two films.book might be small but theres alot of info that can be ellaborated on.
@17 – u r just a kid that lies tryin to make an impression – even me dad ( age 80 and ) saw this one .
and Del Toro can probably squeeze/invent thriller momentum out of a children story like Hobbit ,so lookin forward to seeing this.
I know “the hobbit” well couse it was my first english book that i actualy read… it waw after i saw trilogy i was interested in Tolkien…
and it was my first english audio book i later listen to
here is the link of it
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3922570/JRR_Tolkien__s_The_Hobbit_Audiobook_with_Rob_Inglis
cant w8 but i no i have 2.waited a year each time between probably the best ever trilogy to ever hit the screens,LOTR.
this is the only movie that i have ever seen the audience of a packed cinema applaud for ages after the credits of the final movie The return of the King.grown men and women sobbing everywhere.even then there were rumours that “they” were going to make a film of The Hobbit
even though i read The Hobbit almost 30 years ago,i also agree with RedDwarf4Ever about the book easily spanning 2 films.
hope that the prequel lives up to expectations.
roll on 2010.
When is the HD version of LOTR trilogy due for release anyone know?
ah..yes…and in 2012..the Silmarillion ….
LISTEN TO ME!!!!!
Who cares about who plays Gandalf. The big question is….will the same actor play Bilbo?
only in 2010??? DAMN!!
The hobbit may be no more.
Read below
Hobbit’ Halt: Tolkien Heirs Sue New Line
Tolkien Estate wants its cut of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ profits
n what may prove to be a hold-up for the long-awaited adaptation of “The Hobbit,” the Tolkien Trust has sued New Line over alleged lack of profit participation in the “Lord of the Rings” movies.
he Tolkien Trust, a British charity managing the estate of the “Rings” author, is requesting more than $150 million in compensatory and punitive damages, plus the right to terminate any further rights New Line may have to the Tolkien works under the agreements. That would mean “The Hobbit,” which was expected to be shot as back-to-back films, possibly directed by Guillermo Del Toro.
“The Tolkien trustees do not file lawsuits lightly, and have tried unsuccessfully to resolve their claims out of court. But in this case, New Line has left them no option at all,” says Steven Maier, the Trust’s UK-based attorney in a statement. “New Line has not paid the plaintiffs even one penny of its contractual share of gross receipts despite the billions of dollars of gross revenue generated by these wildly successful motion pictures. To make matters worse, to date New Line has even prevented the plaintiffs from auditing the last two films of the series. The trustees are very aggrieved by New Line’s arrogance.”
The trustees explain that arrogance simply: The cumulative worldwide gross receipts for the three films in the “Lord of the Rings” franchise delivered nearly $6 billion in worldwide receipts and the Tolkien estate claims not to have received even a sliver of the pie.
“New Line has brought new meaning to the phrase ‘creative accounting,’” says the Trust’s domestic attorney Bonnie Eskenazi, who filed the suit on Monday (Feb. 11) in Los Angeles Superior Court. “I cannot imagine how on earth New Line will argue to a jury that these films could gross literally billions of dollars, and yet the creator’s heirs, who are entitled to a share of gross receipts, don’t get a penny.”
“The Hobbit” was only able to move forward into pre-production after Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson settled a 2005 law suit against New Line claiming he’d been stiffed on profit participation.
Previously, producer Saul Zaentz, former Tolkien properties rights holder, had sued New Line twice over — you guessed it — allegedly improper profit participation.
New Line offered no comment to the industry trade papers.
——————————-
Which appears to be “the Peter Jackson Way”
Everyone on that movie actors included got screwed when it comes to pay.
Nice! Sir Ian McKellen is my favourite homosexual. 8-|
to describe The Hobbit as a prequel suggests that it was written as an afterthought (see ‘Young Indiana Jones’ or the Batman series) but, as noted above by other bloggers it actually does predate the writing of LOTR.
It is a separate story, complete in itself, which actually explains how Bilbo Baggins obtained the Ring which he passed on to Frodo at the start of ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ – and its history. It was written as a kids story – must have scared the bejasus out of Tolkien’s kids!
I am fortunate to have some early editions of Tokien’s work as my uncle was a colleague of JRRT at Oxford, and shared his taste in folk tales.
I watched the first Lord of the Rings movie and was bored to tears. Never bothered with the other two.
@55.. another kid lien and tryin to make an impression..pitty… go talk to your dog if u want attention.. or ur probably a loner.. tsk tsk
@55 could you share some of the work?
oh btw to the poster, this my feel kinda like an epic fail…dont it? :’(
@55
care to explain why,cause thats the craziest comment ever.
i guess ur either 1. a complete moron 2. havent got any apreciation for films in general 3. ur a twat with no patince 4. cant read (the book is one of the best masterpieces ever written…shakespear pfft…tolkien is god.
sorry about the rant people but that comment really pissed me off
dude, awsome news!!
@59 Shakespeare is God..
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