On October 14, I posted an entry concerning the departure of DreamWorks from Paramount. The move meant that DreamWorks would exist independently and distribute its future films through Universal. The new situation is complicated by the fact at least for the near future Paramount will still distribute some films it had developed with DreamWorks and all the films made by DreamWorks Animation, which remains within Paramount. In the midst of the shift, the Steven Spielberg-Peter Jackson Tintin project was thrown into an uncertain state.

Universal was expected to co-produce Tintin films along with Paramount, but its sudden decision not to do has caused delays in the production. more »

I must confess that I keep posting off-topic announcements about Ian McKellen. I was a fan long before he donned Gandalf’s beard and pointy hat. It started way back in 1984, when my husband had a Fulbright research grant to live in Brussels for the autumn semester. I had a grant as well, so there we were, with a little apartment off the Avenue Louise, a 20-minute walk from the Royal Film Archive of Belgium. more »

“Del Toro Films” is the official fansite for Guillermo Del Toro, run by webmaster Parker. Now Parker has started a separate page for the Hobbit project, called “The Shire” and described as “The Hobbit Movie Fan Portal.”

It’s a links site, listing Hobbit-related stories on “Del Toro Films”; “The Wire,” “Del Toro Films’s” news page; “The Labyrinth,” Parker’s blog; “TheOneRing.net”; and “The Frodo Franchise.” Thanks, Parker, for putting my blog in that select company!

I’m adding a link to the page to the list on the right. It looks like it will be well worth checking at intervals for a dose of Hobbit-y news.

A while back I mentioned that the Royal Shakespeare Company’s recent production of King Lear, starring Ian McKellen, would eventually be out on DVD. It was released on October 6, though only in the UK. Amazon.uk has it here. Be aware that the DVD has a Region 2 (UK/Europe) coding, so it will only play in other regions if you have a multi-standard player or a special program on your PC.

As for TV showings, King Lear is still listed as being on Channel Four in the UK on December 26. No news yet on when the PBS screening will be.

Since I’m pretty much off-topic anyway, I’ll point out that Ian has been updating his blog about his experiences playing Two in the remake of the classic 1960s TV series The Prisoner. He has done four entries now, the latest posted on October 21. Ian is an excellent writer as well as a superb actor, and the entries make for a good read. The filming is being done in Namibia, so there’s a travelogue quality to the reporting. I hope someday we’ll get yet another blog, this time from New Zealand. The Grey Book II, perhaps?

I haven’t posted for quite some time now. Partly I’ve been dealing with accumulated tasks that awaited me on my return from the Vancouver trip, including an epic entry for the “Observations” blog. Plus, alas, there hasn’t been a whole lot of big news lately. There are a few items on my heap of possible entries for this blog, though, and I plan to post on some of them soon.

I received a note this morning from Steve Newman, of David and Charles, the British publisher of John Howe’s new book, Forging Dragons. He alerted me to the fact that there’s a short promotional film about the book on YouTube. It’s about three minutes long and features John talking about dragons and his reasons for writing the book.

Forging Dragons recently came out from Image in the U.S., and I plan to review it soon. In trying to link to the book on Amazon.uk, I discovered that they’re listing it as coming out on October 31, 2009! Clearly a typo, and I assume, or at least hope, that people pre-ordering it will have to wait a week, not a year. The British publisher is David & Charles.

Those of you who missed it might want to take a look at this entry, where I reproduce my own dragon sketch, done by John.

With all the financial woes the country has gone through recently, the news that DreamWorks has left Paramount as its distribution partner and signed on with Universal may seem like small potatoes. Still, it’s a big shift within Hollywood, and recent news about it indicates that not one but two of Peter Jackson’s current projects are being affected. more »

Despite all the financial woes and lack of credit, MGM seems to be in good financial shape to bear its share of co-producing The Hobbit and “Film 2.” Variety recently reported that the studio, which is trying to make a comeback by moving back into movie production, has plenty of backing and apparently will get more:

MGM is operating with a revolving $250 million line of credit from J.P. Morgan and has $200 million more in equity to use for P&A.

It’s also able to tap into the $500 million fund from Merrill Lynch that specialty arm United Artists is using from J.P. Morgan to fund its slate of pics, says MGM chairman and CEO Harry Sloan. Any pic MGM makes through that fund would have to be released under the UA label.

It just needs to make the movies now.

“We’ve got the funding, we just need to mobilize the projects,” Sloan says.

MGM knows it doesn’t have all the funding it needs, however.

While it has enough to produce mid-range pics, Sloan is still trying to close on a new $500 million fund to pay for tentpoles like new installments of the James Bond franchise, which it gets back from Sony after “Quantum of Solace,” as well as Guillermo del Toro’s “The Hobbit.”

For months, the studio has said it’s close to closing on a new fund that would be backed by several investors.

(“Tentpoles” are the small number of blockbusters each studio makes that help hold up its overall slate of films.)

I suspect that having The Hobbit among its assets is helping MGM in its negotiations!