Peter Jackson and the other members of the team that wrote the Lord of the Rings film trilogy have signed on to pen the movie’s Hobbit prequels, Variety reported on Wednesday. The two Hobbit movies will be directed by Guillermo del Toro, who will join Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens in adapting the J.R.R. Tolkien book for the screen. The news caps off an eight-month search for a scribe to tackle the coveted task of bringing the literary classic to the big screen.
The Hobbit, written by Tolkien for his children years before the Rings trilogy, follows a young Bilbo Baggins, who finds his comfortable life turned upside down when the wizard Gandalf takes him on a journey for a hoard of treasure that involves trolls, humans, Gollum and his ring of invisibility, and a dragon named Smaug. The films will be shot simultaneously starting in late 2009 with the first movie hitting screens in 2011.
In other news about films concerning people of diminutive stature, singer-songwriter Elton John is to showcase his major hits in a new animated film called Gnomeo and Juliet, the Hollywood Reporter reported on Wednesday.
The movie is an adaptation of the Shakespearean classic, and substitutes lovers from rival clans of garden gnomes for the dueling Montagues and Capulets.
Scottish actor James McAvoy and Emily Blunt are lined up to play the heartbroken garden ornaments. The movie will be produced by Miramax and Elton John’s Rocket Pictures, and features several John classics and possibly a few new tracks.
Much as these films may be anticipated, the attention of the movie-going public is currently focused on the Venice Film Festival, which will open on Aug. 27, especially with the looming presence of the American Academy Awards over this year’s official competition. Many Oscar hopefuls and past winners are included in the selection of 21 films vying for the Leone d’Oro.
The Hollywood link coupled with the box-office success that usually accompanies films associated with the Academy Awards has helped raise the Venice Film Festival’s commercial profile, but the event, which was first held in 1932, has a long-established reputation for showcasing emerging cinema, including films from Asia and Latin America, and this year proves no exception.
Burn After Reading, perhaps the most eagerly anticipated film at this year’s Venice Film Festival, is not running in the official competition and thus won’t win any prizes in the lagoon city.
But if a recent trend is to be confirmed, the film is likely to make a splash at the next Oscars.
Made by Joel and Ethan Coen, it has the honor of opening the festival in a world premiere that will lift the lid on the latest effort by the siblings whose No Country For Old Men triumphed at the last Academy Awards.
Billed as a spy story laced with black humor, Burn After Reading boasts a high-powered Hollywood cast including George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich and Frances McDormand.
Last year, two films launched in Venice, Atonement and Michael Clayton, garnered seven Oscar nominations each, while in 2005 Brokeback Mountain scooped Venice’s top Leone d’Oro (Golden Lion) award and later earned Taiwanese director Ang Lee an Oscar as Best Director.
In family news, actor Matt Damon and his wife, Luciana, have become parents of a second baby girl.
Their daughter, named Gia Zavala, was born on Wednesday, the Oscar winner’s spokeswoman was quoted as saying by the US entertainment magazine People.
The couple tied the knot in December of 2005. They met two years earlier in Miami Beach, where Matt Damon was filming at the time. Luciana Damon, who was born in Argentina, worked in a nightclub.
Matt Damon, 37, is working now on a CIA thriller entitled Green Zone. He has also agreed to star in the forth installment of the highly successful Bourne action movies.
When the weather is too cold to enjoy the white beaches and blue waters of Pingtung County’s Kenting (墾丁), it’s the perfect time to head up into the hills and enjoy a different part of the national park. In the highlands above the bustling beach resorts, a simple set of trails treats visitors to lush forest, rocky peaks, billowing grassland and a spectacular bird’s-eye view of the coast. The rolling hills beyond Hengchun Township (恆春) in Pingtung County offer a two-hour through-hike of sweeping views from the mighty peak of Dajianshih Mountain (大尖石山) to Eluanbi Lighthouse (鵝鑾鼻燈塔) on the coast, or
Charges have formally been brought in Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) bribery, corruption and embezzling of campaign funds cases. Ko was briefly released on bail by the Taipei District Court on Friday, but the High Court on Sunday reversed the decision. Then, the Taipei District Court on the same day granted him bail again. The ball is in dueling courts. While preparing for a “year ahead” column and reviewing a Formosa poll from last month, it’s clear that the TPP’s demographics are shifting, and there are some indications of where support for the party is heading. YOUNG, MALE
Her greatest fear, dormant for decades, came rushing back in an instant: had she adopted and raised a kidnapped child? Peg Reif’s daughter, adopted from South Korea in the 1980s, had sent her a link to a documentary detailing how the system that made their family was rife with fraud: documents falsified, babies switched, children snatched off the street and sent abroad. Reif wept. She was among more than 120 who contacted The Associated Press this fall, after a series of stories and a documentary made with Frontline exposed how Korea created a baby pipeline, designed to ship children abroad as quickly as
Taiwanese persimmon farmer Lo Chih-neng stands on a ladder in his sprawling orchard using pruning sheers to cut the golden-yellow fruit still hanging from branches after enduring a tough season. Persimmons are popular in Taiwan where people travel hours to buy bags and boxes of the sweet dried fruit to take home to their families or give away to friends. But changing weather and an aging population are posing a threat to the century-old industry, forcing some farmers to look at alternative ways to maximize returns — or get out altogether. Lo’s harvest was down by more than a third last year, the
RSS