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November 12, 2001 - November 20, 2001

Tuesday, November 20, 2001
Fan Fun In Sweden - Xoanon @ 10:11 PST
From: Lenderiel

Im a fellow ringer fan from Gothenburg, Sweden. Anyway, i was in the line outside the "Palladium" cinema in Gothenburg eagerly waiting for a ticket. It was not as cold as we thought it would be but still, cold. Anyway, heres the report:

At 1600 hours, Sunday, a fellowship from Gothenburg left for the Palladium Cinema downtown Gothenburg. We knew people had been waiting outside the cinema since friday, but they were few. So we thought that if we start to camp at about 1600 hours we should be able to get a ticket for the premier for sure.

However, the line was a little bit longer than we expected it to be, it already streched around half the building. We sat down and began to wait. We chatted with the people in the line and quickly got to know those closest to us. After an hour or so our we realized that we really should have brought chairs with us. So two of us went back home, grabbed some chairs, and went back. By then, the person left behind had met some people he knew and had invited them to sit with him.

Me and my friend accepted that since we had met these people at other occasions before. So the fellowship of three had now growned to seven. We talked about the Lord of the rings and tolkien and we listened to people reading texts from "Silmarillion" . Around midnight the felllowship had grown even more, to about 15 people, and the line behind us stretched around the entire building. People were getting tired and some tried to sleep. Two from the fellowship walked away to buy some coke but came back with beer, soon our camping spot was in a festival mood. An old man walked up to some other people who had brought a tent and asked them what they were protesting against by camping here. "oh, errr, we are just waiting" the amused ringer fans responded. At about half past six the people with tents began packing down their tents and this was the first sign that the "real" line was going to form soon.

In no time, the whole line was in movement, everyone getting ready. Soon the line was formed and people argued about"who should be before who" in the line. After standing in that horrible line for about 2 and a half hours we got our tickets for the first show, 24:01. Happy, tired and already planning next years camping we went home to our warm beds.

World News on tickets and release dates. - Tehanu @ 05:20 PST
Spain's release date's officially moved up to Dec. 19th; in Brazil it's back to Jan 1 and the same for Argentina.
Spanish site Elfenomeno.com is collecting all the Latin-American release dates on its site. [More]
FOTR tickets are on sale today at the Odeon Leicester Square (where the Harry Potter premiere was) in London.
In Hungary the release date has been delayed to the 13th of January because the company that had the Hungarian rights (Kinowelt) went bankrupt.
In Finland, it turns out the release date's Dec. 19 too.
In Greenland, tickets went on sale today [Nov. 19th.] The sun never sets on the LOTR empire, truly : )
Thanks to Leandro, Dune, Mikkel,Steve, Mariela and Elrond....

Monday, November 19, 2001
LOTR Popcorn Tubs - Xoanon @ 23:22 PST
Ringer Spy thewhiteladyofrohan sends us these beautiful LOTR popcorn tubs. Take a looksee!


Sauron Plate Opens Doors - Xoanon @ 13:41 PST

Glaurung sends along this newspaper article from The Citizen paper in Christchurch, New Zealand. Take a look at Sauron!

Montreal LOTR Contest! - Xoanon @ 13:31 PST
CHOM FM is proud to be the official station presenting Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring. Listen for our daily clues as to where we’ve hidden the “secret ring”. Collect the clues and Friday mornings at 7:10, Pete & Andrew give you the chance to win a pass to the exclusive premiere and qualify for a $3000 shopping spree at Bijouterie Futuriste, the West Island’s premiere jeweler. Last week's location was the Olympic Stadium. What will this week's location be? [CHOM FM]

Friday, November 16, 2001
Scandinavian ticket sales. - Tehanu @ 18:36 PST
Jenny from Sweden writes in:

"I nearly choked on my sandwich this morning when I turned the page in my morning paper (Göteborgs Posten, western Sweden's biggest news paper) and stared right into the eyes of Frodo! It was a full page ad announcing that the FotR tickets for Sweden will be released on Monday, that is November 19th. It was an absolutely beautiful ad and it sort of lighted up my whole day (after I stopped coughing...)"

More news on times etc. here

And from Andre in Norway:

"Just want to tell you that the lines are forming in Bergen, Norway. The tickets will be available on Tuesday in 4 days, and the lines already started to take shape late last night. These are true fans, two of my friends are in the line, and we're getting tickets. I can't wait !!!!!"

Mikko wrote in from Finland:

"Tickets are coming to sale here in Finland at the 3rd of December and it seems it's going to be riot out there... in Denmark people lined for the tickets for five days and they have so far sold way over 60.000 tickets in advance, which is, naturally the Danish record. In Norway they also busted some records, an amazing sum of 25.000 tickets
sold during the first day. Is it going to get crazy elsewhere, or what? I haven't seen this kind of hysteria since... well, actually never. And some people are actually concerned whether Harry Potter is gonna beat us:)"

Fan Contest In UK - Xoanon @ 08:28 PST
From: Angel

I'm not sure if you've already reported this, but UGC cinemas have a booking line for The Fellowship. Lines are open from November 19th, and the number is 0870 010 2351.

They are also running a competition where you can win a 'framed, signed filmposter' (unfortunately they don't mentioned who signed it), or one of ten crew jackets. Just send your name and address on a postcard to:

Lord Of The Rings Competition, UGC Cinemas, Power Road Studios Power Road, Chiswick, London, W4 5PY, or pick up an entry form from your local or maybe not-so-local UGC. Closing date is 20th December.

Thursday, November 15, 2001
Trent Talks Tolkien - Xoanon @ 16:25 PST
From: grashbash the gouger

I wanted to let you know that in my hometown of Peterborough, Canada, I am taking 5 week university course on lotr at Trent University! Its a non credit course availible to any who might like to go. It started last tuesday and goes for five weeks until dec 11th. This past session we learned about the origin of many of the key names in the books, aragorn, eomer, eowyn etc. It was really cool and interesting. I think you can still sign up for it.

LOTR Contest In South Africa - Xoanon @ 16:15 PST
Mike from South Africa here again. Er, thought I should let people (in South Africa) know that there is a competition running in the 'Sunday Times' newspaper which comes out every - gasp - Sunday, where one lucky person (I sound as bad as the guy on the radio did) can win a trip to London AND attend the world premiere of 'The Fellowship of the Ring' on December 10. I don't know all the finer details, all I know is that people in South Africa can find the entry forms in The Sunday Times Newspaper. The competition is being advertised on all the radio stations here and I can't wait to win that sweet sweet prize... I don't actually know why I'm writing this in cause now I'm gonna have less chance to win... oh well... it's almost Christmas...goodwill to all mankind...

Also (as usual) I had to chime in on this buzz about the footage before 'Harry Potter', as I've always argued, apparently there is a 60 second something for 'The Fellowship of the Ring' before the film. Don't know what it is, maybe it IS 3 minutes long, but there definitely IS something in front of the film.

A Fan Adventure - Xoanon @ 09:37 PST
My name is Peter and I just wanted to relate the events surrounding the LOTR ticket sales in Auckland, NZ. Me and my two mates Paul and Daryl lined up at 8:30 pm on Wednesday night. The tickets were due to go on sale 7:30 the next morning. It was freezing cold, raining and gales force winds blew our meagre blankets away but we were not perturbed. Shortly thereafter the first of the media showed up. TV3's nightline interviewed us, showing footage of the trailer and footage of us singing (I had my guitar) and goofing around. They left and we set in for the long haul. We were shortly joined by a LOTR nut who had read the book 37 times. In due course five more people were to join us (bringing the total number to an ironic 9). This little Fellowship braved the elements and saw the night through. By 6 am the media started to flock to us. Being first in line the attention was focused on us. We were interviewed by 97.4 Classic Hits radio station live, we were broadcast live on TV1's Breakfast Show. TV3 showed up again and took footage of us and we will be on their news hour at 6 pm tonight. TV1 showed us on the midday news show and will do so again tonight at 6. We were interviewed by another radio station IRN News and Sport. Lastly the national paper The New Zealand Herald sent a photographer along and we are to appear in tomorrows edition! At long last the doors were opened and I was first in to get possibly the first ticket in the country! Cool.

Anyway that was our little adventure waiting for the LOTR tickets and more than made the freezing our butts off and getting very wet worthwhile!

Wednesday, November 14, 2001
Eyewitness report: The Wellington Ticket Line - Tehanu @ 23:26 PST
So what was the the first day of ticket sales like in Wellington, home of the film production? Pretty laid-back. Well, this is New Zealand, after all!

"I got some tickets this morning for the 12:01am screening at Hoyts. They said they'd open the box office at 7:30am this morning, and they actually opened about 15 minutes earlier than that, just as I was arriving. There were about 15 or 20 people waiting when they opened the grille, and the ultra-keen ones scrambled under and ran to the counter. The more dignified among us just walked up casually. One of the guys who'd been queueing since 3A.M. was first in line and bought 42 tickets.

"TVNZ had cameras there, and reportedly in Auckland and Christchurch as well. The camera people looked a little disappointed that there wasn't a massive crowd of costumed fanatics, but hey, they only had 400 tickets to sell, what did they expect? RNZ radio news was there too, trying to get some silly sound bytes: "Were you at the Star Wars premiere too?" "No." "Are those 20 tickets for you and your friends?" "No, I was planning on just going myself and stretching out". "Are you going to keep them somewhere special?" "No, probably just leave them on my desk for a month."

"What they should have asked everyone was "Are you part of the cast?", because my friend (an extra) recognised half the people there as being part of the actual production. Only the "significant" cast and crew get tickets for the Embassy, and no spouses allowed, so a lot of extras were attending the midnight sessions so their parters and friends could watch it with them.

"By 7:30 they looked like they'd sold out."

Many thanks to Mr Tadpole for that report!

Glaurung's LOTR Adventure - Xoanon @ 23:18 PST
Our faithful spy Glaurung has recounted his adventure in getting his LOTR:FOTR movie ticets! Enjoy.

6:10 Glaurung and henchman drive through the Hoyts8 Cinema carpark and note around 10 keen ringers waiting for the tickets to go on sale. Due to the lack of a "ticket rush" we retire to Denny's for a slap-up breakfast.



6:40am We return to Hoyts8 to find the crowd has doubled (at least 20 ringers!) and a TVNZ camera crew has arrived and is setting up. Sauron is pretty lonely in the car park but that is set to change.



7:05am TVNZ interview the keenest ringers live on the One Breakfast show. Three guys had a tent while 3 or 4 others were ensconced on a couch in the back of a Ford Courier ute covered in blankets. A small but brave effort in the unwholesome weather conditions.



7:10am The ticket office open and there is a not-to-hurried movement of ringers from outside in the showery rain into the movie theatre. Tickets for the Dec 20 Midnight session are the only ones available - much to the annoyance of one guy who waited in the cold for tickets to a screening at "a decent hour of the day".

Alls well that ends well - we managed to grab our tickets



and Andrew from Hoyts very kindly donated the flyer advertising the event so we could scan it.



Glaurung out.

Ticket Sales: Worldwide - Xoanon @ 19:45 PST
Reko writes: Just wanted to let you know that the tickets for LOTR in Finland will go on sale 3th of December.

quagmire writes: Hi there, I'm from Christchurch, NZ. I just bought some tickets for the first FOTR screening down here (one past midnight). Woohoo!

Simon writes: Just reporting that we've got our tickets :) We're in Christchurch, New Zealand and I've got 30 tickets, still warm. We camped out in the back of a flatbed truck (with armchairs, duvets etc) and have been interviewed on the national TV (TV1), the local paper and various radio stations.

Peter R writes: In Sweden they will be selling tickets on monday, november 19, at 08.00.

Ticket Sales: Canada, UK, NZ & Beyond - Xoanon @ 08:46 PST
Reports are coming in from around the world regarding ticket sales for LOTR:FOTR. We have a report Porirua, Wellington that says the tickets can be bought today, and other saying ticket sales in Canada go on sale on the 26th, and in the UK on the 19th.

Quite a few people have written in asking when their country will start selling tickets, I will have to look into it further, but I do think it depends on the country and perhaps even the local theatre owners.

Jerm writes: just got report from the biggest Belgian Movie complex (Kinepolis) that one can start buying his/her tickets starting from December the 17th.

Jan writes: In Germany the Ticket Sale for FOTR starts officially on Thursday 22nd. The date is even mentioned at the end of the "new" LotR-Trailer. On a side-note: This is the FIRST movie to officially start on a WEDNESDAY in Germany. The official release day for movies over here is normally on a Thursday. One can only thank Warner Bros & New Line for this wise and very cool decision.

Tuesday, November 13, 2001
Call Them Snazzy - Xoanon @ 10:48 PST
Ringer Spy Doughboy sends along these very very snazzy (apparently I cannot use anything with the word 'cool' for a while) LOTR popcorn bags, take a look.


Monday, November 12, 2001
Hobbit Boys Join Fan-Club - Xoanon @ 20:24 PST
AFTER AN ARDUOUS JOURNEY TO MOUNT DOOM, HOBBITS REUNITE THROUGH THE LORD OF THE RINGS FAN CLUB

(NORFOLK, Va. November 12, 2001) The Fellowship of the Ring actors Sean Astin (Sam Gamgee), Dominic Monaghan (Meriadoc Brandbuck, Merry), and Billy Boyd (Peregrin Took, Pippin) have joined fellow cast member Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins) in The Lord of the Rings Fan Club.

"Frodo did it. Merry did it. And Sam did it. How can I not join them. We Hobbits stick together,² remarked Boyd.

The Lord of the Rings Fan Club launched on October 17, 2001, with an unprecedented charter membership program on LOTRfanclub.com. Charter members receive:

- an annual subscription to the bimonthly movie magazine
- a limited-edition, widescreen-format collector's lithograph (featuring scenes from The Fellowship of the Ring)
- a 10% discount at the Fan Club¹s online store and catalog
- preference (two weeks before general public) in purchasing exclusive, limited-edition collectibles
- fan mail service to link fans directly to the stars of the trilogy; plus
- only charter members will have the honor of seeing their names in the credits of the movie DVDs.

To sign up, fans can visit LOTRfanclub.com, go to the official Lord of the Rings web site at lordoftherings.net and click on ³Fan Club, or call 1-800-451-6381 (North America only) or 303-856-2201 (from anywhere in the world) between the hours of 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. MST.

Mastercard Offer In Oz - Xoanon @ 17:32 PST

I've posted scans like these before, but the mastercard folks in OZ seem to be pushing ahead and working on thier LOTR themed contest. Take a look.

Book Signing Event In UK - Xoanon @ 13:08 PST
From: Tranquileye

Here follows some of what was discussed at the book signing with Jude Fisher & Brian Sibly.

As with other recent signings it was an intimate gathering of 20 to 30 people upstairs at Ottarkars book shop in Milton Keynes UK.

They began by telling us how they came by Tolkien & LOTR, Brian had tried several times to read the Tome but never got past the first 100 pages but whilst laid up in Hospital he made it past that magical hundredth page & the rest is history.

Jude spoke of her first encounter on the film set after being summoned (yeah what a chore that must have been!) & on seeing Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn surrounded by some Hobbits on a hill with mist swirling around the summit she knew that this was a once in a life time project.

With her background deeply connected with Tolkien & working with illustrators & artists such as Alan Lee & John Howe this was Aragorn as she had always imagined.

Brian said he was overwhelmed at the detail on the sets & spoke of Bilbo's dwelling how in the real world to construct such a burrow was an absolute nightmare even down to the intricate door hinge that held the green wooden door in place with the door knob in the middle exactly as he had imagined from reading the book & Alan Lees artwork.

He later told us Bilbo's house was quite surreal because you first walked into a lager than life size set so you were a Hobbit & directly behind was a Hobbit scaled set that made you feel like Gandalf having to duck & crouch to walk through.

The issue of size didn't end there they had to find very large livestock to move around the village to keep everyone in scale, he said there were some very large cows & monstrous sheep wondering about Hobbiton.

Jude said that Peter Jackson had gone with Alan Lee's feel for the world of Tolkien: landscapes, buildings etc. & for action scenes & the different races of middle earth John Howe's art had been used, the Stone troll came straight from the pen of J Howe.

I asked if they had acquired any keepsakes from the filming both said no & that Newline cinema were very strict about the whereabouts of props but Jude recalled that Ian McKellen had managed to get himself a rather splendid door knocker from err I can't remember sorry! But it was very nice!

Peter Jackson had been tagged Sauron, sitting his directors chair overseeing all, Jude remembers him sitting with 6 or more monitors all showing different scenes taking place at the same time, the power of it all!

Jude said the filming at Helm’s Deep was possibly the most arduous & probably fraught with the most injuries to illustrate this cast sported t-shirts with Helm’s Deep but the M crossed out!

The thing that brought a grin to my face was when Brian confirmed the films length at around 2 hours & 45 minutes, although neither of them had seen more than 20 minutes in rushes.

Miramax or Newline, apparently when Peter began his quest to find a backer Miramax stepped up but after a short time it was clear they were looking for a single film & told Peter how to go about this, now at the time Mr Jackson had envisaged the Tome in 2 parts & all credit to him he declined & the they went their separate ways.

Newline then entered the room & to Peter’s surprise they offered a three film deal the rest is history, I feel Miramax may sack lynch someone for being a little narrow minded!

Well that’s about it suffice to say we gathered up are shiny new books cards & anything else relating to the world of Tolkien & waited in line for some signing, all credit to my girlfriend who cornered a sales assistant & acquired a promotional bill board for me, much to envy of several other’s who like most English are too polite to ask, Ha!

UK Ticket Sales: November 19th? - Xoanon @ 08:25 PST
From: Beckymonster

The UCI chain will be selling tickets for Fellowship of the Ring as of Monday 19th November. It's stated at the bottom of their film times leaflet that can be picked up at any UCI cinema. I would assume that this is for opening day on 19/12.

For those Brits who haven't seen the newest trailer in all it's glory - ensure that you're in early for Harry Potter - the trailer is in front of Harry Potter (which I saw at the weekend). Harry was a very, very good film - one of the best of the year but the trailer was mindblowing! Whether the trailer for Episode II will supersede it (IF we Brits get it;)) remains to be seen.


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