17/12/03

[Michel Delving]

Not long to go now then!

And the latest news is:

LOTR: The Return of the King: 'Starjay' has an update on the third film, its reshoots and some FX difficulties: "ROTK is suppose to run in the 3.5-4 hour range, P.J. can use as much time as he needs to finish the story. Most of the actors will be returning to New Zealand for reshoots before the ROTK release. There were two other film crews that were filming other than P.J. and Barry Osbourne/Fran Walsh and P.J. was allegedly very disappointed with the direction and the acting. All of these scenes will be reshot, and the director has a lot of work to do before the release. I was told that the battle scenes for ROTK would be much more difficult this time, as opposed to Helm's Deep. HD was easy due to the darkness and the rain, it hides a lot of sins. The Battle of Pelannor Fields and the stand at the Black Gate won't be in the dark although it's not completely daylight either".

courtesy of dark horizons.

[Talimon]

I highly hope that source is credible.

[PRH]

This kind of sounds like a bunch of bull to me. Why would they wait until now to reshoot -- not pickup shoot -- reshoot scenes because the acting and direction sucked. Isn't that what dailies are for? Also, a movie in excess of 3 1/2 hours? I really can't buy that. And reshoots on action scenes? That seems like a major undertaking. And furthermore, PJ has just done interviews saying ROTK post production is going to be a more leisurely schedule than TTT, which doesn't jibe with the sudden news that a ton of reshooting will happen. I don't know, just seems far fetched. The only solid piece is that daytime, but not bright battle scenes.

I certainly could be wrong though. Has this 'starjay' dealt scoops before?

[FoolOfATook]

PRH- I agree with everything that you said, except for not being able to "buy" the idea of a film longer than three and a half hours. I refer you to another highly sucsessful film adaptation of a popular twentieth century novel.

Gone With The Wind.

[PRH]

Well, that's one example.

Gone With The Wind came out in a very different movie going era though. There wasn't so much competition and people didn't have as short of attention spans. I think art was a more dominating factor in film making than it is today. Things have skewed more business dominated. Box office gross is the bottom line and New Line will know for certain that the longer the run-time, the fewer screenings can be shown. 3 hours is already pushing it. I can maybe imagine NLC yeilding to a maximum of 3 1/2 hours due to the enourmous success of FOTR and TTT, but beyond 3 1/2? Why would they want to do that (especially when they know a ROTK EE will solve any run-time problems)?

I looked at some showtimes and I see a lot of 12:30/4:00/7:30 (which would get out at 10:40), or close to it patterns. This suggests that theaters want :30 between showings (10 minutes of that is probably for previews). So what if the runtime was 4 hours? They might starts as early as 12:00 so the same theater would be 12:00/4:30/9:00 (which would get out at 1:10). Here's another example: try to squeeze in 4 showings of TTT - 12:00/3:30/7:00/10:30, gets out at 1:40? Maybe... Now go to 4 hours: 12:00/4:30/9:00/1:30, gets out at 5:40? Not likely. Four hours is really pushing it. I think run-time is a major concern.

[Talimon]

I doubt it will come close to 4 hours, but I wouldn't be surprised if they gave him 3 1/2. I think RotK will need every minute it can get.

[Michel Delving]

hhhhhhhmmmmmm you're probably right.......

The first post info seems to have disappeared from dark horizons today. but this is there:

In a CBBC Newsround interview, PJ touched upon two very important things. First, how goes the third film "Return of the King"? "We've got a rough cut. And I just started last week, before I came over here, I started to do the final cutting of it which will take me about three months. And then there's all the visual effects to do and the music and everything else so we're pretty busy next year. The third one is my favourite I think of the three". The other? What extra stuff can we expect on the "Two Towers" DVD? "There's some great scenes - good stuff with Merry and Pippin and Treebeard. A couple of good Gollum scenes actually that we're going to put on the DVD that we didn't end up using in the film. There'll probably be about the same amount of footage roughly as there was for the Fellowship - about 30 - 35 minutes worth of footage. There's a lot of good stuff, strong scenes".

DVD EE TTT extra there.

plus this, re 4hour running time (which I could hadle plus a 5hour dvd ee!:D ! Then a back to back home marathon round my house of all three - 11 hours!:D ):

talked with Elijah Wood and director Peter Jackson about the third film which they indicate will be longer than the last two: Jackson says "It will be as long as it needs to be. The third is my favorite one in the trilogy. It's almost biblical and makes me cry. It's about incredible courage and the last part of it is just mind-boggling". Wood's attitude runs along similar lines (fancy that!): "The third movie has always been my favorite. I've seen moments from it and they just break my heart. You've grown to care about these characters and they lose quite a lot in the process of the third movie. Frodo, Sam, Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn will never be the same". Meanwhile UK comedians French & Saunders might appear on the DVD of the third film according to Ananova.

hang on, French and Saunders - is this April 1st!

[Talimon]

The reference to French and Saunders is due to a spoof they did on LotR. I believe Ian McKellen first saw it, showed it to PJ, and they are planning on including it on the last DVD. That's what I remember, at least.

[LordOfMoria]

I believe the film will be 3 hours just like the est of the films but i think after all the films and the dvd's are released (included EE) PJ will want to put together something that has showed every single scene that flows the story. Making about 4-5 hours new film maybe? ANyone hear any of this?

[LordOfMoria]

Originally posted by Michel Delving
hhhhhhhmmmmmm you're probably right.......

The first post info seems to have disappeared from dark horizons today. but this is there:

In a CBBC Newsround interview, PJ touched upon two very important things. First, how goes the third film "Return of the King"? "We've got a rough cut. And I just started last week, before I came over here, I started to do the final cutting of it which will take me about three months. And then there's all the visual effects to do and the music and everything else so we're pretty busy next year. The third one is my favourite I think of the three". The other? What extra stuff can we expect on the "Two Towers" DVD? "There's some great scenes - good stuff with Merry and Pippin and Treebeard. A couple of good Gollum scenes actually that we're going to put on the DVD that we didn't end up using in the film. There'll probably be about the same amount of footage roughly as there was for the Fellowship - about 30 - 35 minutes worth of footage. There's a lot of good stuff, strong scenes".

DVD EE TTT extra there.

plus this, re 4hour running time (which I could hadle plus a 5hour dvd ee!:D ! Then a back to back home marathon round my house of all three - 11 hours!:D ):

talked with Elijah Wood and director Peter Jackson about the third film which they indicate will be longer than the last two: Jackson says "It will be as long as it needs to be. The third is my favorite one in the trilogy. It's almost biblical and makes me cry. It's about incredible courage and the last part of it is just mind-boggling". Wood's attitude runs along similar lines (fancy that!): "The third movie has always been my favorite. I've seen moments from it and they just break my heart. You've grown to care about these characters and they lose quite a lot in the process of the third movie. Frodo, Sam, Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn will never be the same". Meanwhile UK comedians French & Saunders might appear on the DVD of the third film according to Ananova.

hang on, French and Saunders - is this April 1st!

can u provide a link for this?

[PRH]

It appeared on http://www.darkhorizons.com/news.htm. It's probably buried by now.