Besides being able to catch John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) in Troy or Ian McKellen (Gandalf) in the X2 behind the scenes feature on Fox. You can take a look at all the other LOTR cast members on the small screen this week! [More]

IceC writes: On Saturday, April 19, The Fellowship of the Ring won the Best Screenplay Nebula, awarded by the Science Fiction Writers of America at their annual conference in Philadelphia. Peter sent along a video-taped acceptance. [More]

Film maker Peter Jackson turned to directing of a different sort yesterday as he helped choreograph a World War I battle scene in the Marlborough skies. The vintage plane fanatic and Lord of the Rings director was on hand at the Classic Fighters Marlborough air show which featured Jackson's Sopwith Camel bi-plane engaged in the re-enactment of an aerial duel with the Red Baron. [More]

Gaming Havens has added a new poll asking who you'd most like to play Video Games with! Would you rather school Elijah Wood in the latest combos of The Two Towers, or watch as Craig Parker snags those last Rupees in Zelda: Wind Waker? Head on over to Gaming Havens and vote now! [Gaming Havens]

JovialNazgul writes: Teen People has a sexiest people poll, one of the categories is "Sexiest Resident of Middle Earth". [More]

no, not the website...but the actual One Ring! Jens Hansen personally sent along this link with detailed information on The One Ring, including all the various versions of the ring you can find around the world! Take a look! [More]

Sylvan has the scoop: I work in a small independent rental video retailer, and was quite pleased upon arriving at work today to find we had received an official release date for The Two Towers! This came in the form of a CD-ROM "Digital Announce Kit" which contains everything from upcoming TV & radio promos, ad slicks and product images... Release date for the Theatrical Edition will be August 26th, and the Extended Edition will be November 18th.

Here's a little [more].

Yesterday, on a show on MTV called Punk'd, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd were in a very short interview. They were asked by a little kid if they were hobbits and then were also asked if they worked for Santa. Dom replied "No, those are elves. They're taller." Thanks to Ringer Boppinsmom for that one.

Posted up in March, you may not have seen this article yet over at HollywoodJesus.com. JK writes: Here's a great new article on Haldir and the Elves at Peter Jackson's Helm's Deep. Very nice. I don't recall seeing it at TOR.n so I thought I'd send it in. [More]

... of Troy! One of our newest Barliman's Chat Operators PippinSkywalker wrote in to say that JRD will play King Priam of Troy at 8:00 pm EST/7:00 CT on the USA Network today & tomorrow (4/20 & 4/21). Have a look: [More]

If you haven't heard yet, Ford of Rivendell wanted you to know! They just had a preview for X2 (X-Men 2) on the Fox Movie Channel. (I'm not sure if it is the same as the trailer that's online... but there is loads of Ian McKellan and it was well over a minute)

From Ringer Bonnie: I thought everyone might like to know that Viggo Mortensen is in the Scoop Pop Quiz section of People Magazine this week (April 28, 2003 - Madonna is on the cover). It has a picture of him and asks questions about his poetry. Check it out!

Just thought I'd let you know, a friend of mine was on a business trip in Roanoke, Virginia, and she saw The Two Towers on Pay Per View!

Thanks to Brenda for the heads up!

Julie writes: Don't know if you guys would be interested in this but I got a kick out of it. My husband wears bow ties and when we got his latest BeauTies Ltd. catalog, the company has developed a series of Tolkien inspired ties! There are six of them with LOTR themed names. I'm sure that any fan fashionable enough to wear a bow tie would want "Hills of Evendim," "Mount Gundabad," "Mountains of Shadow," "Mount Mindolluin," "Mountains of Mirkwood," or "Orodruin." [More!]

Hmmm.. these would have done great at our two Towers: One Party...

The people across at BitofEarth.net have been understandably quiet since Project Elanor began on April 5, but have finally declared the project complete. What's more, they have a report up which includes a picture gallery from the day when Sean Astin helped out on the building site. [More]

In for a penny, in for a pound, goes the saying. But if you want to own this extremely rare first edition copy of the Hobbit, you'll probably need about 7,000 of them. [More]

You can check out a scan of the dust jacket - and details of when the auction takes place - here. Thanks to Ringer Spy Arwenelf for digging up the link.

Okay, we've known that Sierra will be turning the Hobbit into a computer game for Nintendo Gamecube, PS2 and XBox - as well as the GameBoy Advance - for a while. However, the people at actiontrip.com got a nice peek what's planned and a quick chat with Troy Skinner, producer at Sierra Entertainment. [More]

For more information, you can also read an earlier interview that Design Lead Chuck Lupher gave to our own Gaming Havens staff just a couple of weeks ago. [More]

Early this week I posted about a career-comprehensive interview with Billy Boyd on IGN Filmforce. Only a couple of parts were up at that point. However, all five parts of this two-hour long phone interview have been transcribed and posted ... and it's well worth the read. So if you missed it, head over and take a look! [More]

This weekend, Hall of Fire focuses on one of Tolkien's more mysterious creations - the Druedain. If you're somewhat mystified as to who these people are, the name Ghan Buri Ghan (from Return of the King) may ring a few bells. Just what was Tolkien's inspiration for the creation of this "unlovely" and secretive people? A forest people with no writing system and "guttural languange", they seem uniquely placed among the Free Peoples of Middle Earth. [More]

The Sydney Morning Herald scores a great interview with Hugo Weaving. Journalist Garry Maddox writes: Despite shunning Los Angeles and staying close to his Sydney home, Weaving's profile has soared in recent years thanks to roles in the hit movies The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix. [More]

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers has been nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation of 2002. The Hugo Awards are given out each year for the best in science fiction as determined by a vote of current Worldcon members. This year's Hugos will be given out at Torcon in Toronto on Saturday, August 30. You can check out the full list of nominees here.

Last year The Fellowship of the Ring picked up the Hugo Award in the same category. Thanks to Laurie for the info!

Cartoonist John Cook is running a cartoon caption contest on his website sev.com.au. The cartoon has Wormtongue surveying a vast army of orcs, wondering how Saruman put together such a huge army so quickly. The reader gets to write Saruman’s response. The entries are rated by readers with the funniest punchline voted on in a week’s time. The contest ends Wed 23 April. Check it out here!

Thanks to Jess for the heads up!

I'm starting to think that the folks over at the CBBC website lack a certain amount of imagination: all of their polls seem to be somehow related to Lord of the Rings. At the moment they are running one about you favorite 'thing' here, and your favorite celebrity (vote for Elijah Wood or Orlando Bloom) here. Vote if you dare...

A lot of people have emailed me today saying that Daniel Bedingfield (the guy we reported about yesterday) isn't really English at all. It turns out he's from New Zealand, which might explain his fondness of LOTR...

Sent to us from Ringer Mo Jones: As I'm sure you know, the Space Channel from up here [Canada] was at the big Oscar party and put together a really fun video... and thanks to the hard work of Demosthenes & Arathorn we’re now able to present this little gem for the rest of Planet Earth. Featuring site Co-Founder Xoanon, Green Books’ Quickbeam & Anwyn, Sandman/Orbiter illustrator Colleen Doran, actors John Rhys-Davies, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, and fans from around the globe, this is a great taste of what the party looked and felt like as we celebrated the nominations of Peter Jackson’s LotR: TTT during the 75th Academy Awards.

Windows Media 9 [Click to view video] (18.2MB)
Quicktime: [Click to view video] (20.4MB, but slightly worse quality)

If necessary you may need to download the Window Media 9 codecs or Quicktime.

Brian writes: I didn't know if this was noteworthy or not, but I noticed that the American Film Institute was going to do a list of 100 years of 100 heroes and villains: There are 400 screen characters on the ballot. The screen characters range chronologically from "The Vampire," played by Theda Bara in 1915's A FOOL THERE WAS to multiple contributions in 2001 that include Gandalf the Grey (LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING), Detective Alonzo Harris (TRAINING DAY) and Shrek (SHREK). [More]

Deava writes: They are showing TTT in the huge science center at Harvard University this Friday and Saturday night at 7pm. Tickets are only $1 for students and $3 for those who aren't quite Harvard-esque. [More]

... and help a worthy cause raise needed funds. Idahoarchery hosts this raffle until April 19th and all proceeds will go to the Children's Miracle Network Hospital. [More]

While surfing the latest trailers at Apple.com, I stumbled across Orlando Bloom (Legolas) doing an introduction for a brand new "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" trailer. Is it me, or is Orlando a little too laid back with his intro?[More]

Jennifer writes: Hello there! My name is Jennifer. I just thought you might be interested in this little thing I found in Daniel Bedingfield's thank yous [on his album I presume -leo]. I started laughing when I recognized his format and thought it might be a nice piece of info for the site. It's always nice to see LOTR used by other artists. [More]

The BBC asks today "Who's the best virtual movie character?" I'm surprised they even need to ask! [More]

Another poll currently running on the BBC website asks us which we are looking forward to the most: The Return of the King or the fifth Harry Potter-book. At the moment we are loosing badly, let's see if we can turn that around as well! [More]

LONDON, England (AP) -- It has no kitchen and no central heating, but a house that "Lord of the Rings" author J.R.R. Tolkien lived in 85 years ago has sold for £745,000 ($1.1 million) after a bidding war. The Georgian town house in central Oxford sold this week for £50,000 more than the asking price, a real estate company said. [More]

John Howe writes: To the best of my knowledge, the Salon International du Livre et de la Presse et du Multimédia, Palexpo, Geneva (April 30th to May 4th) is the first time that original sketches for the Lord of the Rings films have been exhibited in Europe. [More]

Well..it had to happen eventually, LOTR has become the fruit flavored gummy candy kids love. Take a look at these scans, thanks to Olivia. [More]

Today, April 17th is Sean Bean's (Boromir) Birthday! Sean Bean was born on 17 April 1959 in Sheffield, England, UK . That makes him 44 today! Happy Birthday Sean!

[Click here to send your best wishes to Sean Bean!]

Jasmine Watson, the woman who made pretty much all of the excellent jewellery seen in The Lord of the Rings, has updated her website. You can now take a peek at her newly released 2003 collection. Also, by following the 'Lord of the Rings' link you can see the stuff she made for The Two Towers. Be sure to check it out over at JasmineWatson.com!

Plenty of people have been sending me the following link they received in their mailboxes today. It states that New Line will soon be officially announcing the release dates for TTT: The Theatrical DVD soon. [More]

The director of the Lords of the Rings films has revealed there'll be loads more of the two hobbits and Treebeard in the Two Towers DVD. Peter Jackson says that there are an extra 43 minutes of stuff that wasn't on the film in the cinemas, and that most of it is really funny. [More]

Luke writes: I have just been listening to BBC radio 3 and I thought you might like to know that Professor Tolkien's house in Oxford has just been sold for £700,000. This might not sound like a fortune for a house in central Oxford but apparently (according to the newscaster) there is no kitchen or heating! There was a bit of a bidding war going on but they didn't mention who bought it.

UPDATE: Jon writes: The actual figure was more than £745,000 for the 7-bedded Georgian townhouse in Oxford, where Tolkien & his wife Edith lived in 1918. The Tolkien Society expressed an interest in buying the property but it proved too expensive. The house was bought by an unnamed man, who now plans to renovate it.

We've posted about Ian McKellen lending his voice on a new episode of the Simpsons over a month ago. But only now do we learn the unfortunate title (at least for me) of the episode, 'Regina Monologues'. Sigh...

Two of the most popular licenses of all time combine into one delicious sandwich of death-defying speed and action! [More]

They have 9 horses. You have 700. Can you outrun them?

(Before we get angry emails or asked to post about a petition banning this game, it IS only a joke -Xo)

Well.. so much for 'The Guardian's online poll I mentioned yesterday. The Lord of the Rings is currently in a very comfortable first position with 65%, Harry Potter dropped down to 30%. I guess it's safe so say that we won this one, sorry Harry.

Bring on the next poll!

Alright, Bash hopefuls - here's the first of what will probably be many posts about Barliman's Bash, 2003. To sum up: The Bash is being held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada this year, from Wednesday the 23rd of July through Sunday the 27th. For those who don't know, it's a primarily social event, intended to give Ringers a chance to get together and hang out for a few days. Sure, there will be some Tolkien discussion - and we're working on organising a few actual Tolkien-related events. More than anything, though - it's a party.

If this sounds like your sort of event, there's more info [here].

English newspaper 'The Guardian' is currently running a poll on their site asking which 'winter-franchise' is the best. At the moment The Lord of the Rings ranks second after Harry Potter and that of course will not stand. Cast your vote here!

Natalie writes: I transcribed the Ian McKellen tv appearance if you want to read it. [More]

NEW YORK (AP) — Tobey Maguire and Viggo Mortensen were nominated for best male performance, and the movies they star in —Spider-Man and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers— each received a leading five nominations for this year's MTV Movie Awards. [More]

Although I'm loathe to cut and paste items directly from the LOTR Fan CLub Magazine (we like to get our own content), we've gotten so many emails about it I may as well post it. Take a look! [More]

Silmarien writes: I thought you might like this cartoon from this weeks Listener showing PJ sitting on top of the "Beehive", (NZ's Parliament Buildings), holding Helen Clark, (our PM). [More]

In my rant yesterday about the MTV Awards I forgot to mention that YOU can vote for the winners! Take a look at the MTV page and vote TTT! [More]

An anonymous spy dropped this little gem into our mailbox just yesterday. What is it? Well, it's a short video sequence of Gandalf chatting to Aragorn about the Ring in far more depth than we've seen previously. It could be from a Two Towers EE scene, a clip from the Two Towers PS2 game, or even a snippet from RoTK - we're not quite sure yet. You will need the latest div-x codec - which you can obtain from here - to view this file, but it's a free download. [More] Spoilers!

Update: About 50 people wrote to me to say that this clip does - as I suspected - originate from the the EA game of the Two Towers. [More]

Empire Online has this very early preview of Return of the King on their site. No really new information, but a few olds snapshots and a quote or three about Mouth of Sauron and the Dark Lord himself from Peter Jackson that you might have forgotten about. [More]

Kenneth over at IGN Filmforce dropped us a line to say that the site is doing a week-long special on Billy Boyd, focusing on his extensive film and stage career. So, while Billy might be most recognisable to you as Pippin Took, delve into this special feature and discover much much more about this talented Scot. [More]

I found these fabulous caricatures of Karl Urban, Peter Jackson and Elijah Wood while snooping around stuff.co.nz. [More]

In the most recent edition of the LoTR 'Fan Club Official Movie Magazine', an interview with PJ states that FotR EE had 32 extra minutes, and the Two Towers EE will have 43 additional minutes. That means the extended Towers will come in at 222 minutes in length - that's a whopping 24 per cent more movie! Thanks to all who reported this! [More]

I just happened to be watching 'Law & Order' on TNT (yes, I'm a L&0 addict) and overheard an interesting commercial. The premise of the ad was a young boy under his blanket reading late into the night about 'Wizards and Hobbits,' while using a flash-light powered by Duracell batteries. What can be next, a Gollum animatronic that keeps going...and going...and going.....(oh no wait, thats Energizer..nevermind!)

GaladrielFinwe writes: I'm from the music group, Vis Sit Tecum Musicorm, that played at the beginning of the Two Towers - One Party! I know it's been three weeks now since the party but we've all been very busy... so here is a belated report of the party, as well as some of our pictures (more will be posted soon). [More]

Tolkien artist John Howe has some new entries in his journal, including news of his latest booksigning, and word that a small selection of a dozen pieces of Lord of the Rings film artwork will be on show at the Geneva Book Fair at the end of this month - a European premiere for these pieces. [More] Thanks to WeeTanya for the link.

MTV has just released their nominations for the 2003 Movie Awards. I think the Powers-That-Be at MTV are overlooking Andy Serkis much like the Academy Awards, they're nominating 'Gollum' for best team and best virtual performance instead of ANDY SERKIS...what do we have to do to get Andy some respect?!?!!!!

"The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" and "Spider-Man" lead the crop of nominees for the 2003 MTV Movie Awards with five nods apiece. The 12th annual awards ceremony will be taped May 31 at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium for broadcast June 5 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, according to a network spokesperson.

Best Movie
Best Male Performance (Viggo Mortensen)
Best On-Screen Team (Elijah Wood, Sean Astin and Gollum)
Best Action Sequence (The Battle for Helms Deep)
Best Virtual Performance (Gollum)

Here's an article on KillerMovies.com about the interview McKellen did on BBC's 'Parkinson' show, including pictures of the Elven '9' tattoo on his arm. [More] Thanks to Vill for the link.

Amy sends along word that our favorite baddie Lawrence Makoare mentioned a few interesting tid-bits in regards to ROTK..and PJ one day making The Hobbit(?!). Take a look! !!Spoilers!! [More]

Ephor writes : I noticed when going to see TTT again last night that FOTR and TTT will be screening in double feature mode for a week May12-18, at the Garden City Megaplex in Mt Gravatt, Brisbane.

Nadine writes: Miranda Otto (Eowyn) has been nominated for a Helpmann Award in the Best Female Actor in a Play category for her performance in the theatre production "A Doll's House". [More]