Be sure to check out our weekly Sideshow Collectibles update! Each week we provide an update on your favorite Sideshow goodies, from busts to premium figures and more! Take a look! [More]

Claire writes: A new translation of the 'Mabinogion' by Sioned Davies, Professor of Welsh at Cardiff University, has just been published. These Welsh tales appear in 'The Tolkien Fan's Medieval Reader' by Turgon, though in an older translation. If you'd like to read a modern one, try this version. There's a review, by the first national poet of Wales, Gwyneth Lewis, from the Guardian newspaper at books.guardian.co.uk.

You can buy a copy on line at all the usual outlets - one which specialises in Welsh books is Gwales at www.gwales.com. If you want the link to this book on the Gwales site, it's here.

,img src="http://img-www.theonering.net/images/frontOB.jpg" ALIGN=LEFT> After starring in two megasized Hollywood trilogies that have taken him from unknown to A-list ("Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Lord of the Rings") Orlando Bloom is walking away from movies -- temporarily. "It's been an incredible ride," said the 30-year-old, sprawled across a sofa at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. "And it's been wonderful but I'm sort of psyched to do something completely different." Hence, he's returning to the theater -- the London stage, to be exact, to appear in David Storey's play, "In Celebration." Sailing straight from London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama into Hollywood's spotlight was "huge" and "surreal," Bloom said, an experience that moved him "to go back to the beginning, as if I've just come out of school again." [More]

In my opinion Halo is to video games what American Idol is to television, and yet both 20th Century Fox and Universal decided a Halo movie (with newbie director Neill Blomkamp directing) just wasn't going to happen. But that was then, and this is now -- with Halo 3 getting set to demolish the gaming world, Peter Jackson told OnFilm magazine that he expects the project to lift itself out of development hell once Fox and Universal catch a glimpse of the Halo hype first hand. As far as Blomkamp goes; Jackson notes: "We wouldn't want to do it with anyone else. It's Neill's call." But that's not all the man has on his plate; apart from directing The Lovely Bones, Jackson is producing a remake of 1954's The Dam Busters; a project he's kept quiet about for quite some time. [More]

Writer/director Sam Raimi confirmed to SCI FI Wire that he has spoken with New Line Cinema honcho Robert Shaye about helming The Hobbit, a Lord of the Rings prequel film based on J.R.R. Tolkien's book, but only once and only informally. "I spoke to him once, so it's a little more overblown, I think," Raimi said in a news conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., over the weekend while promoting his upcoming Spider-Man 3. "That's why I don't want to pretend that it's bigger than it is. I had one conversation about the possibility of it, and that's really where it's at." As for his interest in the film, Raimi repeated that he would only sign on with the OK of Peter Jackson, the Rings director who has been blacklisted by New Line as a result of a lawsuit over Rings revenues. "I'd have to know that he was OK with it," Raimi said. "It's really his picture and Bob Shaye's picture." [More]

The folks from AskMen.com send this in: I wanted to inform you that Orlando Bloom has been recently featured as the AskMen.com “Man of the Week”. I figured this article may be of interest to your readers! [More]

To celebrate their return to London’s biggest and baddest movie, comic and media convention, Weta Limited are selling 1,200 collectibles from their King Kong range at the bargain price of £1! Sounding a little too good to be true? Well, it isn’t! [More]

Rachel from WETA writes: A reminder that tomorrow (Fri 25 May) we will open our pre-ordering for the first of the three Weta Originals, the 'Goliathon 83 Infinity Beam Projector'. The Goliathon is the heaviest of the three, and if the press information is anything to go by, is "perfect for clubbing small seals or naughty children". The Goliathon 83 was featured alongside the Rayguns range in this month's WIRED Magazine. [More]

Vanessa "Saffron" Price, Online Community Representative for The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar writes: We’re pleased to provide you with some stunning screenshots from our upcoming content update: The Shores of Evendim! Enjoy! [More]

Orlando Bloom is slated to be a guest on 'The Ellen Degeneres Show' today. He is there to promote his latest film 'Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End', which will most likely open HUGE this weekend. Stay tuned for the clip! And the as-promised clip of Orlando Bloom on Leno last week!

Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop is in talks to create visual effects for an action adventure film telling the story behind the devil's fall from grace, an industry website has reported. The film – to be produced by Christine Iso's Los Angeles-based Pacifica International company – may also be shot in New Zealand to take advantage of local tax credits, screendaily.com said. The writer of Sleepless In Seattle, David Ward, is producing a script from a story by first-time director Ray Griggs, who has personally financed development of the project. The film, Lucifer, describes how the devil was once an angel whose pride caused him to be cast out of heaven and bring sin and death to mankind. [More]

May 23, 2007 - Chance Thomas seems to have a knack for getting himself attached to rather epic videogames, specifically in the arena of composing vast, interactive, and equally epic scores for such games. Thomas' credits to date include X-Men: The Official Game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces, Peter Jackson's King Kong, among others. His latest project, however, brings him back to a realm he is quite familiar with: J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth. [More]

Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar proves that a product doesn't have to be completely original to be very good. Whether it's combat mechanics, character development, player-versus-player clashes, crafting, quests or communication channels, chances are Turbine's latest massively multiplayer online franchise will remind veteran gamers of another MMO product. The graphics engine, developed during the course of three games spread over seven years, was most recently used in Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach. [More]

We know this because a team led by one of the writers of this fascinating book, Australian archaeologist Mike Morwood, discovered the creature's skeleton in 2003, in a cave on the remote island of Flores. Since then, bones belonging to at least eight more individuals have been found, ranging in age from 95,000 to 12,000 years old. Our own species has been alive for at least 100,000 years, in case you were wondering. These bones are such a conglomeration of the primitive and the modern, so tiny, and so recent, that many scientists thought they were a hoax. "If you told me an alien space craft had landed in a field in Flores I would have been less surprised," said experienced paleoanthropologist Peter Brown, who studied the bones. [More]

Laurelin wrote in with this story detailing how Aragorn's 22-year-old close companion and friend was saved by a surgery. Read all the details right here.

Vanessa "Saffron" Price, Online Community Representative for The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar writes: Today we added a new Dev Diary about the new Evendim update coming soon! Matt “Scenario” Elliott gives you a sneak peek at the creation of LOTRO’s first content update: The Shores of Evendim! [More]

Dominic Monaghan will be a guest on 'The View' today. He is there to promote the third season finale of 'LOST' on ABC.

From hisdarkmaterials.org: Today New Line launced the first teaser trailer for The Golden Compass. This trailer will also be shown in cinemas together with Pirates of the Caribbean 3. It is interesting to note that various scenes from the trailer were also shown at the (Cannes Film Festival) press screening. [More]

Take an early look on our 'DVD Tuesday' feature...every Monday! Check out some TV on DVD goodies like 'Mythbusters: Collection 1', 'Oc: Complete Fourth Season' & 'Scrubs - The Complete Fifth Season'. There are a few compilations out tomorrow including; 'War Giftset' & 'The Gary Cooper Giftset'. This week John Wayne would have turned 100 years old, to celebrate the studios are releasing a slew of his films on DVD sets and single set DVDs, 'The John Wayne Adventure Collection', 'The John Wayne Century Collection', 'The John Wayne Collection', 'The John Wayne Film Collection' & 'The John Wayne Western Collection'. The big releases of the week are 'Apocalypto' & 'Epic Movie'. The HD DVD and Blu-ray crowd are getting treated this week with 'Pirates of the Caribbean I & II', 'Mission: Impossible I & II', 'Letters from Iwo Jima', 'Flags of Our Fathers' and 'The Ultimate Matrix Collection' all getting the High Def treatment. Personally I'm interested in 'The Third Man - Criterion Collection (2-Disc Edition)' & 'Afro Samurai (Director's Cut)'! Check out the whole list here! [More]