Peter Jackson
Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson has undergone surgery for a perforated ulcer, The Associated Press reports.
Jackson was admitted to a Wellington, New Zealand, hospital on Wednesday after suffering severe stomach pains, his publicist said. He is now resting comfortably and expected to make a full recovery.
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Jason Gann, Elijah Wood and Fiona Gubelmann
Elijah Wood's return to Middle Earth will be a small one — and not just because he'll reprise his role as the tiny hobbit Frodo Baggins.
Wood, who next will star in the quirky FX comedy, Wilfred, will make a brief appearance in the big screen adaptation of The Hobbit, the prequel to the blockbuster Lord of the Rings trilogy.
"I actually spoke to [director Peter Jackson] a while ago and I had an idea that there was something that they were thinking about," Wood said at the Television Critics Association winter previews Saturday. "So it was in my mind as a possibility, but not as...
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Sir Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis will reprise their Lord of the Rings roles in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit, according to Entertainment Weekly.
Martin Freeman heads Hobbit cast
The casting announcement follows Friday's big news that ...
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In the latest round of fall-season pilot casting, Bruce McGill (Cinderella Man) has been tapped to play a Chicago crime boss in the ABC drama Enemies... Sean Bean (The Lord of the Rings) will play a federal prosecutor who infiltrates an underworld organization in Fox's Faceless... Jennifer Westfeldt (Kissing Jessica Stein) has joined ABC's Notes from the Underbelly... and Julie Hagerty (Airplane!) is the title character's mom in Fox's Becoming Glen. Also of note: Milo Ventimiglia (Gilmore Girls, and a star of WB's forthcoming The Bedford Diaries) has joined NBC's Heroes, Eric Mabius (The O.C.) plays a fashion-mag boss in ABC's Ugly Betty, and Jaime King (Kitchen Confidential) has the lead in Fox's The Worst Week of My Life.
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Question: Since motion-capture performances are becoming more and more common, what are the chances of someone getting an acting nomination for a role like King Kong or Yoda in the new Star Wars movie?
Answer: With moviemaking technology changing at an ever-increasing pace, the Academy has been reviewing a number of its policies, and I've heard it suggested that over the next few years they'll wind up doing their biggest overhaul since the introduction of sound in the 1920s. I have to wonder, for example, whether the conspicuous absence of Frank Miller's Sin City – by any objective standard one of the most visually stunning films released in 2005 – in any category is because members of the various branches didn't know what to nominate it for, given that the photography was extensively digitally overhauled and the production was almost entirely computer generated.
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Dominic Monaghan, Lost
This week's Lost (airing at 9pm/ET on ABC, for the 108 of you who don't know) focuses its attention on Charlie, whom Claire and some others (but not those Others) suspect may be chasing the dragon... sampling the smack... riding the H train... OK, I've run out of euphemisms (and even made up that last one, I think). But is DriveSHAFT's bass player actually back with the brown sugar? TVGuide.com went to Dominic Monaghan for the inside dope.
TVGuide.com: Regarding this week's episode, "Fire + Water," I imagine you must have been excited to tap back into Charlie's sad little past. It's been a while for you.Dominic Monaghan: It has been a while. This season has been, in a sense, about change, in terms of the format, in terms of how they've told the stor
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Speaking of Kong, Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings composer Howard Shore has quit the project in the home stretch. "During the last few weeks, Howard and I came to realize that we had differing creative aspirations for the score," Peter Jackson told the Hollywood Reporter in a statement. "Rather than waste time arguing with a friend... we decided amicably to let another composer score the film." James Newton Howard (The Village) has accepted the rush job.
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Question: Any news about the Smurfs movie?
Answer: I read in USA Today last week that producers envision the CGI trilogy as a comical adventure, with a Lord of the Rings-like fellowship of Smurfs unraveling a mystery. "We looked for what are the pressing questions about the Smurfs," said the pic's writer, Jordan Kerner. "How did they get here? Who is Gargamel and why does he want Smurf soup?" Hopefully they'll also catch the evildoers who napalmed the Smurf village. And then promptly feed them to Azrael.
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The Lord of the Rings hobbit Sean Astin has joined the cast of Fox's 24. Although he will work for CTU (which will still be headed by James Morrison's Bill Buchanan), the net isn't spilling another single bean about Astin's character, and it certainly isn't admitting that he will have furry feet. The clock starts ticking again on Jan. 8.
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Jon Voigt
Citing personal reasons, Ian Holm (The Lord of the Rings, Chariots of Fire) has asked to be released from his commitment to play the lead in CBS' forthcoming John Paul II miniseries; in his stead, Jon Voigt (Anaconda, Deliverance) will portray the elder pontiff, Variety reports. Cary Elwes still will play the younger Karol Wojtyla, which again I say is great, because brother absolutely killed in The Princess Bride
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