Do you love Lost? Do you love it so much that you could devote days of your life to doing nothing but watching the show? Yup, me too. So I wish I lived in London: according to the New York Post, the Prince Charles Cinema will be showing all six seasons of Lost in one 80-hour sitting. (Fortunately for the sleep-deprived audience, Kate episodes will be strategically scattered throughout the series at perfect naptime intervals.) I’m sad I won’t be able to make the screening, but the news got me thinking: What is your personal record for a pop culture marathon? READ FULL STORY »
Tag: Lord of the Rings (21-30 of 32)
Aug 30
2010
02:30 PM ET
'Lost' 80-hour marathon: What's your longest pop culture binge?
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Jun 26
2010
01:56 PM ET
Peter Jackson may direct 'The Hobbit'? Now we’re Tolkien!
Image Credit: Don Arnold/WireImage.comLet’s face it, Guillermo del Toro was a perfect choice to direct The Hobbit. Boundlessly creative and visually distinctive, del Toro would have been able to give the Lord of the Rings prequel a different tone from the epic triptych, while remaining true to its spirit. But it was just not to be. He left the project two years into a five-year sentence, and the best thing for us to do was to move on and not cry over spilt mead. And now, news that producer Peter Jackson is in negotiations to return to Middle Earth and direct the two-part film himself makes me think there’s no reason to cry after all.
When they say that he’s “in talks,” I can really only picture Jackson alone in a conference room, occasionally switching chairs, an argument brewing between his director-self and producer-self over remuneration and percentage of profits. Personally, I hope the two of them come to an agreement soon, because it would absolutely be a mutually beneficial arrangement. Producer Jackson gets one of the best fantasy directors around, one not only with an intimate knowledge of the LOTR universe but also of this particular production, and Director Jackson gets a chance to return to his Academy Award-sweeping roots after the hiccup that was The Lovely Bones. Everybody wins.
Including the audience. With Jackson replacing del Toro, and not some unknown interloper, we at least have a sense of what to expect. There’s no slinking fear that the final product might end up something like this. The real question is how much of del Toro’s two years of design and pre-production work Jackson will incorporate into his Hobbit, should he take the job. It would be fascinating to see a melding of these two different styles of fantasy film-making: Del Toro’s bulbous, inventive menagerie inhabiting Jackson’s epic, sweeping vistas.
What do you think, PopWatchers? Excited at the prospect of Jackson retaking the reins? Is there anyone out there who actually thinks that this isn’t great news?
Jun 7
2010
03:41 PM ET
'Hobbit': Del Toro's explanation just leaves us with more questions
Image Credit: Nick Wall/WireImage.comA week after Guillermo Del Toro’s announcement that he was stepping down from directing The Hobbit, the filmmaker has returned to Lord of the Rings fansite TheOneRing.net to provide a longer explanation for why he left the crazy-high-anticipated project. The problem is that his explanation leaned more on you-gotta-read-between-the-lines vagueness than here’s-what’s-going-down specifics, and like the finale of Lost, it’s left me with as many questions as satisfying answers.
“I’ve developed films for years and I have shot many a movie on location,” Del Toro posted to TheOneRing’s message boards yesterday, “but rarely do you relocate for such a massive amount of time, especially when you have to do major ironclad agreements to put in deep freeze other contractual obligations with multiple studios….So — while the cited delays, contractual complexities or obstacles, cannot be attributed to a single event or entity — you will simply have to believe that they were of sufficient complexity and severity to lead to the current situation. Trust me on this…leaving [New Zealand] and the Hobbit crew is extremely painful.”
While it’s clear that Del Toro became frustrated with having to put all of his other projects “in deep freeze” while working on The Hobbit, I’m left to wonder when he realized that was going to be a problem. READ FULL STORY »
Jun 1
2010
03:45 PM ET
The 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years: Here's our full list!
To help celebrate Entertainment Weekly‘s 20th anniversary (one more year and we can finally drink booze!), the writers and editors have carefully curated a list of the 100 greatest characters in pop-culture over the last 20 years. Whether the fictional women, men, ogres, muppets, babies, and cartoon rockers who made our list were initially created before 1990 didn’t matter so long as they made a lasting impact in the culture after 1990. Some characters were so inseparable in our minds and hearts — like a certain highly articulate TV mother and daughter, for example — that we simply listed them together. (Hey, it’s our list, so we get to make the rules.) Rest assured, we carefully deliberated, debated, argued, and bickered over who would make the cut and where they deserved to be ranked; after you take a look at our list, please feel free to do the same in the comments. READ FULL STORY »
May 31
2010
12:07 AM ET
Why Guillermo del Toro left 'The Hobbit' -- and Peter Jackson will not replace him as director
Image Credit: Barry King/FilmMagic.com; Kristian Dowling/WireImage.comOver the last four years, there has scarcely been another project in Hollywood that has been more highly anticipated — and has weathered more back-room corporate wrangling — than The Hobbit. So when filmmaker Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy) announced today that he was dropping out of directing the two films planned for J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary preamble to The Lord of the Rings, the news served as both a shock to fans and yet another possible casualty in the sad ongoing saga of MGM Studios.
As Del Toro (pictured, right) and The Hobbit producer Peter Jackson (pictured, left) explained to LOTR fansite TheOneRing.net, the two Hobbit films are still slated for release in Dec. 2012 and Dec. 2013. And Del Toro is still collaborating on the screenplay with Jackson and his LOTR co-screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. But why did Del Toro walk away from one of the most highly coveted director’s chairs in modern cinema? And who could possibly step in to replace him? (Read on for why it won’t be Peter Jackson.) READ FULL STORY »
Apr 28
2010
06:49 PM ET
'The Hobbit' on track (hopefully) for 2012 release
Image Credit: Nick Wall/WireImage.comTolkien aficionados, movie lovers, fans of small, furry-footed humanoids, and nerds of every persuasion have been salivating for years over any tiny morsel of gossip and speculation regarding the big-budget adaptation of The Hobbit. Now, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, comes the encouraging news that the first installment of The Hobbit, which Guillermo del Toro is on board to direct, has indeed been scheduled by Warner Bros. for release in December 2012, with the concluding installment to come in December 2013. (Some Hobbit-watchers may have been thrown into a panic earlier when IMAX mistakenly suggested the first movie would come out in 2013.) Now, granted, there is no firm start date for production yet — the screenwriting team, including del Toro and The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson — is still toiling away on the script. But any Hobbit news is good Hobbit news, right?
What do you think, PopWatchers? You’ve waited this long — can you hold out until 2012?
Mar 9
2010
08:30 AM ET
'Big Bang Theory' recap: One ring to rule them all
Image Credit: Cliff Lipson/CBSSo, best episode of the season, right? Yeah, it was a smidge gimmicky to construct a Big Bang Theory story around the discovery of a genuine One Ring prop ring from The Lord of the Rings (ringy ring ring), but it easily netted a jackpot of full-body guffaws from this particular viewer, and I have a feeling most of y’all as well. Everyone in the cast had a showcase moment (or several), the story played beautifully off each character’s particular quirks, and Penny finally got to give Sheldon the knuckle sandwich he’s deserved for nigh on three seasons
It all started with a clever bit of we’re-a-fellowship-on-a-quest foreshadowing, namely Sheldon explaining to Leonard that in their “ragtag band of scientists with nothing to lose,” Sheldon is the Smart One, Howard is the Funny One, Raj is the Lovable Foreigner Who Struggles To Understand Our Ways And Fails, and Leonard is the Muscle. Hence why Leonard alone had to bear the burden of the box of geektastic tchotchkes they had just purchased for $60 at a local garage sale — a garage sale they discovered after following a man they thought was Adam West.
“Who’s Adam West?” asked Penny.
“Who’s Adam West?!” exclaimed Sheldon. “Leonard, what do the two of you talk about after the coitus?” (The coitus! Love it!)
Before Leonard could answer, Howard chimed in: “My guess is, ‘Hey, four minutes, new record!’” And immediately, I knew it was going to be a good night indeed. READ FULL STORY »
Dec 29
2009
06:15 PM ET
All right, Mr. del Toro and Mr. Jackson. I'm ready for my 'The Hobbit' close-up!
OMG guys. I think my head — as well as those attached to the bodies of my fellow Lord of the Rings freakazoids — just exploded, creating a massive blaze that shines brighter than the light of Eärendil. It looks like The Hobbit is officially accepting applications for actors hoping to land roles in the LOTR precursor. But before you prepare to slap on your finest coat of armor and grab your Sting swords, take note of some of the specific guidelines: 1) You have to apply by physical mail (Kids, ask your grandparents about that one), 2) You need to include a casting video, and 3) Though it kills me, New Zealand locals must be hired before overseas actors. Hurumph. So not fair. They already have lush beauty! Since I’m forced to cope with smelly city streets decorated with cigarette butts, why can’t I have one tiny advantage?!
Tell me, PopWatchers: Would you create a casting video to nab a role? And what would you do to grab Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson’s attention? I could kiss my giant poster of Frodo and his furry feet, because this girl totally had a crush on the hobbit as a 16-year-old.
Dec 15
2009
07:15 AM ET
Who are decade's highest grossing actors?
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the highest grossing actress of the aughties 2000s I-don’t-know-what-to-call-’ems is Emma Watson. All six of her live-action films this decade just happen to be the six Harry Potter films, which have conjured $5.4 billion worldwide, or roughly $900 million per film. (Guinness actually only measured the first five Potter films, but PopWatch is a full service pop-culture blog. You’re welcome.)
But if you want to know who Guinness believes is Ms. Watson’s male counterpart as the decade’s highest moneymaker, you’re out of luck. For some reason, the famed record keeping crew simply proclaims Samuel L. Jackson as the world’s Highest Grossing Actor, full stop, no time-frame included.
Even if this is true for all time, the idea that Jackson was tops for the last ten years seemed…doubtful to me, so I crunched the numbers, courtesy Box Office Mojo. (We’re full service, I tells ya!) Indeed, thanks in part to the fact that he’s starred in practically every other movie released in the last ten years (okay, more like two dozen films, but that’s still more than two flicks a year), Mr. L. Jackson’s movies (excluding voice-over work) have raked in a most impressive $3.3 billion in global box-office. But that does not make him the decade’s highest grosser — not even close. Johnny Depp — a.k.a. Capt. Jack Sparrow, a.k.a. Willy Wonka, a.k.a. Sweeney Todd, a.k.a. EW’s Best of the Decade cover boy — has pulled in $4.2 billion in box-office doubloons this decade, but he isn’t tops either. Neither is Sir Ian McKellan, even though his work helped The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the X-Men trilogy, and The Da Vinci Code rake in an astronomic $4.8 billion worldwide.
Nope, best I can figure, the highest grossing male actor is…drumroll please… READ FULL STORY »
Dec 7
2009
09:00 PM ET
Looking back at decade, Peter Jackson tells EW he was 'amazed' at first response to 'LOTR'
Lord of the Rings trilogy director Peter Jackson, one of Entertainment Weekly‘s Entertainers of the Decade, shared some surprising memories of the past ten years. Asked, for instance, if there had been one particular day when he realized he might pull off the wildy ambitious trilogy, he said, via email, “Yes, in May 2001, in Cannes. We screened 20 minutes of Fellowship to a group of journalists and distributors. It was a huge relief that the screening went well, because the studio had not responded very positively to the footage and they told us to expect the worst. This is why we approached the event with a mounting sense of dread. We were frankly amazed the footage was so well received.”
Jackson admitted he and his fellow filmmakers felt an enormous amount of pressure making LOTR because the studio, New Line, was in precarious financial shape and betting nearly $300 million on his movies: “The fate of the company was hanging in the balance. It was a fear and a pressure that never went away: the idea that if the films failed, we would be personally responsible for hundreds of New Liners losing their jobs. It was a horrible thought — that people with mortgages and families would find themselves out of work because we had failed to deliver.”
And what does he think was his single worst decision of the decade? “To renovate our house whilst shooting three movies back-to-back. The renovations took longer than making the films. Our house was swathed in scaffolding for over two years. It was so bad that a local newspaper suggested that the neighbors might like to pitch in, in good Kiwi DIY style, to help us finish basic repairs and get rid of the eyesore. Flash forward to 2009 and renovations are still a work in progress. We realize now that they will never finish. The builders are very much ‘family’ now.”
For more about Peter Jackson, and other Entertainers of the Decade, check out the Best of the Decade issue, on stands now.
Photo Credit: Robert Smith/Retna Ltd.
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