Could there be a big announcement coming August 21 about the Hobbit being green-lit?
Such is the speculation among Lord of the Rings fans on the Internet.
The whole thing started yesterday, August 8, 2010, when the Noldor Blog reported that some curious goings-on were happening at the Weta Cave. (Weta is the group that provided many of the props for Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies,and the "Cave" is where many of the relics are stored and can be viewed by the public.)
Here is a run-down of reported events which seem to be more than coincidence:
The Weta Cave is shutting down five days for its annual refurbishment. (Last year this took only two days.)
On August 21, the Cave will again close for a private function, and employees are not being told the nature of that function.
Many Lord of the Rings related items are being hurriedly taken out of storage.
Add to these the speculation about the contract between Warner brothers and MGM. Rumors have it that MGM may lose their filming rights if they do not come up with at least part of the financing needed for the film.
Kristin Thompson, who writes the highly-thought-of Blog, The Frodo Franchise, speculates that because of the complicated issues associated with the filming and distribution rights for The Hobbit, the rumors may have validity. From her Blog:
Back in 1969, Tolkien unwisely sold both the production and distribution rights to LOTR and The Hobbit to United Artists, in perpetuity.... Saul Zaentz did not buy the Hobbit distribution rights in 1976, when he bought the LOTR production/distribution rights and the Hobbit production rights. Thus the distribution rights stayed with U.A. Since then, U.A. has shrunk to a shadow of its former self and is now a subsidiary of MGM.... The core of the deal between NL/WB and MGM is that Warner will distribute the Hobbit film in North America and MGM will do so abroad. Since MGM owns all the distribution rights, I suspect that its deal with Warner involved MGM becoming a co-producer of the film in exchange for Warner distributing the film in the U.S.
What this all means is that the studios might have indeed added a contingency clause which required MGM to come up with a certain percentage of the production money by a certain date or the deal would change.
A glimmer of hope for fans? or will this turn out to be much ado about nothing again? Two weeks form now we should know.
