The Hobbit set being built in Wellington New Zealand!

Link to the spy pictures of the Hobbit Set

After all the bad things surrounding The Hobbit. And the latest shoot start delay due to Peter Jackson surgery. Here is some pics at Weta workshop where the set is being built.

Problems in Middle Earth

Many of my friends have ask me if I was going to work on the Hobbit movies. Or why I'm not actually working on it. And I always says, that I would love too but is it actually happening? There is no need for post production until they've actually started production... But When is this happening? And Why are we still waiting?

After the release of Lord of the ring and the big success at the box office, the talk for making the hobbit story into a movie was already at every ones mouth... Return of the King was release on Dec. 17 2003, and seven years later we still far away from seeing the prequel out in theater. Why???

Will we ever see a hobbit movie on the big screen? Even with the world wide success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy it seem that the problems keeps coming up for the Hobbit.

First, the right of the hobbit was not own by New Line Cinema (studio behind lotr) but by MGM. It took years in court for the studio to agree on term of making the movie.

While all that was happening behind the scenes, the media were already talking of who will direct the movie and who will star as Bilbo. Then Peter Jackson was confirm as the director. Soon to be denied by Jackson himself. Saying that he will not take the director chair but will only produce the movie.official link Many director will be name in the coming years.  Sam Raimi, Geoff Murphy, Guillermo Del Toro...

It took almost a year after first rumors came out for Guilermo Del Toro to join the Hobbit as a Director.
During that time it was also confirm that there was going to be 2 movie (2 parts) film back to back on Location in New Zealand. 2 hobbit movies

But more trouble was coming. New Line was now in trouble with Warner Bros. considering a major overhaul of the company. After major lawsuit against them. First by Peter Jackson himself over money owe to him by New Line for unpaid royalties on the profit of the DVD sales. Then by the supporting actors guild of New Zealand for the same things. And now by Saul Zaentz who had sold on his rights to make the movies to New Line. The Tolkiens family were now considering taking legal action to stop New line from making any other movies based on Tolkien work. more-trouble-for-new-line full story

We still got lots of good news coming after that. Sir Ian McKellen Reprising is role of Gandalf. official link

Lots of news coming from Del Toro regularly on the progress of the project. Rumors of actor who will play Bilbo Baggins... The Tolkiens estate case was settle out of court. And finally a start filming date of January 2009 for a release date of Christmas 2011 for part 1 and 2012 for part 2. All was good in Hobbiton!

Then more trouble! Delay! They decide to wait another year to start filming in January 2010 for a release date of Christmas 2012  and 13. But we everything was still moving forward in pre-production.


December 2009, casting started on extras for the hobbit!!! link hobbit-extras

What about me in all this??? I was at Weta Digital during that time, working on Avatar. I saw a lot of pre-production on the Hobbit. Weta Workshop was working on concept art and already into re-doing miniature. Like Rivendale at a much bigger scale than the one use in Lord of the rings. And I gotta say, it got me very exited!!! Especially all the concept for Smug the dragon. Wow! I can see Guilermo Del Toro's touch in there and I was telling myself this is gonna be awesome! They even started pre-production work on the set location of Hobbiton. When I went to visit the location in January they had started planting plants and trees and they had marked places for new hobbit holes. Image Below...

So Why did I leave and not stay at Weta to work on the Hobbit, my friends are asking? Well since filming hadn't started yet I could see a full year before we start post production and all that was left to work on was Stephen Spielberg full animated feature  The adventure of Tintin and the secrets of the Unicorn., and I was a bit burn out from Avatar and didn't see any interest in working on Tintin... Anyway, i told myself,  I could always come back in a year...

Good thing that I did!!! January comes and they announce more delay and filming will start in June. But the movie is still not green light. And to make things worse, MGM are in Financial trouble, with 4 billion in dept and are filling for bankcrupty. Which might kill the next James Bond and the Hobbit.. will-the-hobbit-survive-mgm

Since then everything is going from bad to worst. In May Guilermo Del Toro quits the director position due to conflict with other projects because of all the delay. official link


Then on June 5th in an interview with the Morning Show in New Zealand, Sir Ian McKellen let it be known that if The Hobbit continues to be delayed, he might not be able to return as Gandalf.Now because of MGM fuck up we lost our director and we might loose Gandalf! Very Sad! full article

The Next few months will be fill with rumors of new Directors and actor to fill in for Gandalf if Sir Ian McKellen didn't return.

Then One good news. Peter Jackson decided to re-take the helm and direct Himself the 2 hobbit mov

ies! the-return-of-the-king


And More good news. Seems that MGM, New Line and Warner Brother came to an arrangement that will allow filming to start in February. he-hobbit-movie-gets-green-light

Again More Bad News! The filming of the Hobbit could move to the UK because a bitter dispute between Sir Peter’s Wingnut Films production company and the actors’ union New Zealand, equity of which last month invoked an international boycott of the film over pay and conditions.
This would be very bad news if it happen. New Zealand is part of Middle Earth. It's a big character of the film franchise and I'm not sure it could move else where.

So will see how things goes from now on. If filming start on schedule in February and if everything goes well we could see the start of the post-production in the end of fall 2011. So to answer my friends, if I ever end up working on the hobbit, there is still a lot that can happen until then. So will See!

PS4 Leaked Viral Videos

As it goes with most viral video campaigns no one knows for sure if they are legit or not without official commentary from the e owners of the products. However, these PS4 viral videos are sure to start some buzz among Sony fans. I thought that the PS3 was supposed to have a shelf life for at least 10 years. So I am not so convinced that a PS4 is even close to coming out. It is nice to dream though. I guess we will see what Sony has to say at E3 next week.

Viral Video

Launch Trailer

The effects of sitting for long period of time.

SOURCE: CBC news

The bodies of even the most physically active Canadians take a physiological hit from sitting for hours, say scientists who warn about health effects of an increasingly sedentary society and prescribe some standing advice.
Canadian researchers are part of a pioneer field of study looking at the effects that sitting has on the body. At a lab in Ottawa, scientists are observing children as they watch TV, monitoring their pressure and oxygen consumption. The scientists want to see how sedentary time, such as sitting all day at school and then channel surfing at night, harms children's health.
After two to seven hours of uninterrupted sitting, there is evidence "that is enough to increase [subjects'] blood sugar, to decrease their good cholesterol and to have a real impact on their health," said Travis Saunders, a researcher in exercise physiology at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Ottawa.

more...

full article

The Ultimate World Cup Viewing Party

To celebrate the up coming World Cup, Adidas and FIFA present this little clip taking place minutes from kick off in a galaxie far far away...

here is the video!!!

Guillermo Del Toro leaves the Hobbit

Very sad news... Guillermo Del Toro departs “The Hobbit”

 Source: theOnering.net

I really hated when studios screwed it up!!! The studios are still fighting over the right of the films and the movie is still not greenlight... So much work as been done already for the past 2 years it's very sad to see it come to this because of studio exec...

Guillermo Del Toro announced today that he is no longer directing the two movies based on J.R.R Tolkien’s “The Hobbit”, but will continue to co-write the screenplays.
“In light of ongoing delays in the setting of a start date for filming “The Hobbit,” I am faced with the hardest decision of my life”, says Guillermo. “After nearly two years of living, breathing and designing a world as rich as Tolkien’s Middle Earth, I must, with great regret, take leave from helming these wonderful pictures. I remain grateful to Peter, Fran and Philippa Boyens, New Line and Warner Brothers and to all my crew in New Zealand. I’ve been privileged to work in one of the greatest countries on earth with some of the best people ever in our craft and my life will be forever changed. The blessings have been plenty, but the mounting pressures of conflicting schedules have overwhelmed the time slot originally allocated for the project. Both as a co-writer and as a director, I wlsh the production nothing but the very best of luck and I will be first in line to see the finished product. I remain an ally to it and its makers, present and future, and fully support a smooth transition to a new director”.
“We feel very sad to see Guillermo leave the Hobbit, but he has kept us fully in the loop and we understand how the protracted development time on these two films, due to reasons beyond anyone’s control – has compromised his commitment to other long term projects”, says Executive Producer Peter Jackson. “The bottom line is that Guillermo just didn’t feel he could commit six years to living in New Zealand, exclusively making these films, when his original commitment was for three years. Guillermo is one of the most remarkable creative spirits I’ve ever encountered and it has been a complete joy working with him. Guillermo’s strong vision is engrained into the scripts and designs of these two films, which are extremely fortunate to be blessed with his creative DNA”.
“Guillermo is co-writing the Hobbit screenplays with Philippa Boyens, Fran Walsh and myself, and happily our writing partnership will continue for several more months, until the scripts are fine tuned and polished” says Jackson. “New Line and Warner Bros will sit down with us this week, to ensure a smooth and uneventful transition, as we secure a new director for the Hobbit. We do not anticipate any delay or disruption to ongoing pre-production work”.
The Hobbit is planned as two motion pictures, co-produced by New Line Cinema and MGM. They are scheduled for release in Dec 2012 and Dec 2013.

Dennis Hopper die today at the age of 74.1936-2010

Actor, director and artist Dennis Hopper died Saturday. Hopper had a long and tumultuous career that included such films as "Easy Rider," "Hoosiers," "Blue Velvet," and "Speed." His cancer was diagnosed last year.





Source: the Gazette full story
LOS ANGELES, May 29 (Reuters) - Hollywood actor Dennis Hopper, best known for directing and starring in the 1969 cult classic "Easy Rider," died on Saturday from complications of prostate cancer, a friend of the actor said. Hopper was 74.

The hard-living screen star died at his home in the coastal Los Angeles suburb of Venice at 8:15 a.m. PDT (1515 GMT), surrounded by family and friends, the friend, Alex Hitz, told Reuters.

In a wildly varied career spanning more than 50 years, Hopper appeared alongside his mentor James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Giant" in the 1950s and played maniacs in such films as "Apocalypse Now," "Blue Velvet" and "Speed."

He received two Oscar nominations — for writing "Easy Rider" (with co-star Peter Fonda and Terry Southern), and for a rare heartwarming turn as an alcoholic high-school basketball coach in the 1986 drama "Hoosiers."

But his prodigious drug abuse, temper tantrums, propensity for domestic violence and poor choice of movie roles often made him a Hollywood pariah.

Hopper felt over-indulgence was a requirement for great artists. He once claimed he snorted lines of cocaine "as long as your arm every five minutes, just so I could carry on drinking ... gallons" of alcohol.

Still, his legacy rests securely on "Easy Rider." Regarded as one of the greatest films of American cinema, it helped usher in a new era in which the old Hollywood guard was forced to cede power to young filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.

The low-budget blockbuster, originally conceived by Fonda, introduced mainstream moviegoers to pot-smoking, cocaine-dealing, long-haired bikers.

"We’d gone through the whole ’60s and nobody had made a film about anybody smoking grass without going out and killing a bunch of nurses," Hopper told Entertainment Weekly in 2005. "I wanted ’Easy Rider’ to be a time capsule for people about that period."

Hopper and Fonda were joined on screen by a then-unknown Jack Nicholson as an alcoholic lawyer, but it was not a harmonious set. Hopper clashed violently with everyone and Fonda later described him as a "little fascist freak." Their friendship was destroyed.

Hopper’s 1971 directorial follow-up, "The Last Movie," shot amid what he later called "one long sex and drug orgy" in Peru, was a flop.

He was often gripped by paranoid delusions. In 1982, while filming "Jungle Warriors" in Mexico, he ran naked into the jungle, convinced World War Three had started. He was put on a plane home but jumped out onto the wing as it was about to take off, fearful that the plane was on fire. Upon his return, he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for three months.

He starred in bad movies just for the money, such as "Super Mario Bros." and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2," and turned down important projects that could have enhanced his legend, such as "Taxi Driver" and "Reservoir Dogs."

Hopper also found himself typecast as the psychotic villain thanks to such films as "Blue Velvet," in which he played a gas-huffing rapist, and the 1994 smash "Speed," in which his character rigged a city bus to explode.

Hopper mellowed somewhat in later years, becoming a Republican and a pitchman for the likes of Gap and Nike.

Outside of Hollywood, he was a noted photographer, painter, sculptor and art collector. He lived in a warehouse-style compound in the coastal suburb of Venice, in a neighborhood that was gang-infested until a decade ago.

Hopper fell ill last September. He continued working almost to the end, both on his cable TV series "Crash" and on a book showcasing his photography. But his final months were also consumed by a bitter divorce battle with his fifth wife, Victoria Duffy.

Indeed, his private life was never dull. His marriages included an eight-day union in 1970 with Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and Papas, who later told Vanity Fair that she was subjected to "excruciating" treatment.

Hopper is survived by four children. Funeral arrangements were pending.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/Hollywood+hellraiser+Dennis+Hopper+dead/3087858/story.html#ixzz0pONSRiQ2