Will the Hobbit Break Box Office Records?!

Fans of everything Tolkein have no trouble understanding why people might want to pay good money to see a film about a vertically challenged creature of the imagination, whose every aspiration is simply predisposed toward goodness and honour. But let’s look outward for a moment to consider the nervy moguls that control great chunks of planet Earth’s finances, some of whom finance projects like The Hobbit trilogy. They get genuinely worried whenever a new film comes along just in case, against expectations it bombs; “Battleship” and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ inspired adventure, “John Carter” spring to mind in 2012.

According to Reuters Hollywood is living in great expectations of Hobbit success, so much so that they are counting on the film marking a record upturn in cinematic fortunes.

So, what’s the problem? Surely, box office receipts have done nothing but increase year upon year since 2000? Well, yes they have, but for all the wrong reasons, it appears. The Hobbit could signal a turning point, at least in North America that is, where receipts from cinema-goers are now expected to rise for all the right reasons. They say:

“The film, which opens on December 14, is expected to contribute to the first annual box office increase in North America in three years, a sign that big movie studios have made more films enticing enough to get people into theaters and away from their TVs, games and the Internet.”

That’s remarkable when you consider some of the big-hitters that have gone before. It seems though, that any previous increase in receipts had been more due to small hikes in ticket prices year on year than avid fans demanding to see a great movie.

That’s not to rubbish the others, mind you. There are always good pictures being produced, just not in the volumes needed to make financiers feel secure about the future of the big budget movie experience. “Skyfall,” the highest grossing of the 23 James Bond films to date is still pulling in massive profits at over $227 million in domestic sales so far. The Hobbit is expected to do even better. Speaking about recent output quality, Chris Aronson, president of domestic distribution at News Corp’s 20th Century Fox studio said,

“There is something for everyone. When we achieve that as an industry and the movies are of good quality, that’s when good things happen.”

So, to summarise: the general quality of movies has risen so far recently, that even more people have been driven into the cinema to watch them. What’s more, the exploits of a seemingly insignificant inhabitant of Middle-Earth are set, once again, to change the status quo forever. Nothing new in that then!

ORIGINAL ARTICLE CAN BE FOUND HERE.

A Critical Review of The Hobbit?

With little more than a week to go before ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ goes on general release the critics’ opinions are hitting the streets worldwide. From tabloid newspaper, to respected literary journal, everyone wants to say something following the recent preview. Now that they are firing off in all directions, we thought it time to pull together the most important points so that the fans can take stock.

You are a fan, right? Thought so, this brings up the first issue. Some critics have found the film overly long. And this is a criticism? OK, the end of the Rings Trilogy did, for me at least, contain one meaningful glance too many that could, maybe, have been cut, but it was not overly long on content.Variety has the film down as having a,

“mythologically dense, CG-heavy prologue”.

For which read: a very complicated opening section that uses a lot of modern cinematic techniques. On the other hand, The Hollywood Reporter says,

“Jackson and his colleagues have created a purist’s delight”,

For which read, equally of the same section: a film written by a fan for fans, from a fan’s perspective.

Initially, I’d be tempted to think, were I not someone versed in the back stories of the Hobbit myth that the film is shaping up into an overblown flop. Well…possibly from a purist film buff’s perspective they want to imply that there are flaws in the cinematography and storytelling style, I don’t know. I have this theory though, that anyone who is prepared to sit through thousands of pages of literature with the specific intent of getting immersed in a fantasy world of labyrinthine proportions, isn’t going to be too bothered that a film is very long and contains great levels of detail; just the opposite.

That said I get the point. It is always difficult to translate books into film in such a way that you do not lose the essence of the read, (or possibly in this case, get so much of it).

What else? Entertainmentwise raises the 48 FPS issue, once more, saying the:

“…format is making cinema goers dizzy.”

This may actually prove a problem in the end. There’s certainly been much comment about it, some of it reported on this site, but none of us will know one way or the other until we meet someone, retching as they fall through the cinema doors! This one does remind me a bit when they released ‘The Excorcist’ in 1973, as we got reports then, most of it over-hyped, of people fainting in the aisles through fright and having to undergo psychological trauma therapy.

Elsewhere, IMDB already rates the film at 9.1 stars on the basis of 7,599 users’ votes. The Spectator says,

“Don’t watch the Hobbit”,

But only because the book’s too good to spoil! Seems like a fair point, but I think we all agree about how good the book is already. As far as I can see, the critics are probably stumped generally by the intricacy of Jackson’s vision. Richard Corliss makes the point in Time Entertainment, incidentally while also giving us an interesting graphic of how Gollum is filmed, (take a look), that:

 “Jackson has brought the same capacious vision and maniacal attention to detail [that he did to The Rings Trilogy]”

Hmm…after all that, I was rather expecting to be able to say to everyone reading this, please do / do not bother seeing the film, since the critics have summed it up perfectly as being brilliant / rubbish. Looks like we’ll all have to go and see for ourselves, so that we can make our own minds up. Whatever next?

Gandalf Defends Hobbit Trilogy Decision

Straight from the mouth of Gandalf himself, as it were. Sir Ian McKellen, who plays the mysterious wizard in both the LOTR trilogy and Hobbit films has moved to squash any suggestion that the new films are simply a money-making exercise. Reported in The Hollywood Reporter the venerated actor reiterated a view expressed by thousands of visitors to this site since the story first broke:

“Anyone who thinks Peter Jackson would fall for market forces around him rather than artistic integrity doesn’t know the guy or the body of his work. If we just made one movie, The Hobbit, the fact is that all the fans, the eight-, nine- and 10-year-old boys, they would watch it 1,000 times. Now, they’ve got three films they can watch 1,000 times.”

With his usual eye for detail and genius for spotting precisely the story people want to be told, Jackson has used the extra hours to fill in stories about minor characters, hint at dark background themes and generally give us a better insight into JRR Tolkien’s riotous imagination. Also, McKellen states:

“The (Hobbit) is written in a very brisk pace, so pretty major events in the story are covered in only two or three pages… (We) wanted to do a little bit more character development, plus… we could also adapt the appendices of Return of the King, which is 100-odd pages of material that sort of takes place around the time of The Hobbit, so we wanted to expand the story of The Hobbit a little bit more, as did Tolkien himself. So all those factors combined gave us the material to do it.”

How many times do we hear the complaint, ‘I read the book, but they missed so much in the film they didn’t do it justice’? When a director goes in the other direction, i.e. picks up on all the little clues of a short story and expands on them, then he’s criticized for doing the opposite.

Jackson, of course, knows the consequences of all this. He is already on record with MTV as doubting his films will get the acting plaudits due to them:

“I think we’ve got great possibilities in the below-the-line categories. Above the line, I don’t think so much.  I wish it was a year where we could celebrate Ian McKellen as supporting actor, or Martin Freeman – or Andy Serkis, for that matter – as a supporting actor. The acting awards seem to elude us, at least for these types of films. I don’t know why.”

Peter Jackson has a clear idea as to who should play whom in his films. He wanted Martin Freeman so badly that apparently he rescheduled shooting just to get him. Speaking to MTV Martin said:

“I got a call to say Peter had rearranged his shoot so I could do both [The Hobbit and Sherlock]. I couldn’t believe it.”

The answer to all this could be that where you have such a big cinematic experience, not so reliant on the actor to fill the stage people that hand out the awards simply fail to notice the tremendous individual performances going in to it. It is looking very much that, as Sir Ian says, artistic integrity are the watchwords for the Hobbit trilogy.

Sir Ian McKellen has, himself a history of filling the stage, notably in Shakesperian drama and his exploits in The Rings trilogy certainly resonate. He is Gandalf in my mind. Maybe, just maybe this time, someone will get the recognition they deserve.

PHOTOS!!!

EEEEEEP!

XOXO, Hannah

Hobbit in 3 Parts: Titles & Release Dates

Ttrilogy adaptation of The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, now titled “The Hobbit: There and Back Again,” will be released worldwide on July 18, 2014.

The title of the second installment in the franchise will be “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” and the fill will be released on December 13, 2013. The first film in the trilogy, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” opens this holiday season, on December 14, 2012. Shot in 3D 48 frames-per-second, the trilogy of films will be released in High Frame Rate (HFR) 3D, other 3D formats, IMAX and 2D.

From Academy Award®-winning director Peter Jackson, the trilogy of films is set in Middle-earth 60 years before “The Lord of the Rings,” which Jackson and his filmmaking team brought to the big screen in the blockbuster trilogy that culminated with the Oscar®-winning “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.”

Under Jackson’s direction, all three movies are being shot in digital 3D using the latest camera and stereo technology. Additional filming, as with principal photography, is taking placice at Stone Street Studios, Wellington, and on location around New Zealand.

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content via The Hobbit Movie News

Hobbit Production Video #9

It's the ins and out of getting ready for the film. Last minute animations and so forth. Enjoy!
XOXO,
Hannah

NEW TRAILER

This trailer is AWESOME. Watch and Love!