By now you probably all know that Howard Shore will be conducting his music for The Fellowship of the Ring, accompanying a screening of the film, at Radio City Music Hall on October 9 and 10. I wish I could be there, but I’m writing this from the other end of the continent, in Vancouver, where the Vancouver International Film Festival starts tomorrow. But I hope all the Ringers who are attending the Radio City event have a great time.

The Fellowship of the Ring isn’t the only film getting this treatment in October. Check out today’s Variety story, “A concerted effort for movie music.” I can’t say the Howard Shore’s concerts started this trend, but I’m sure the enormous success that he has had playing the LOTR music live in various venues has helped it grow. And if, as the article says, concert halls draw in new fans for live symphony concerts, all the better!

Early this year Gordon Paddison, who ran the innovative official website for the LOTR film trilogy, formed his own company, Stradella Road. (I blogged about that here on February 12.)

Now Stradella has released a report, “Moviegoers 2010,” which has a lot of information about the degree to which  many people, especially young people, get their main impressions of films by going online. Paddison warns that studios are still not using this resource enough.

Peter Jackson quickly signed a deal with Stradella Road, based on the great job that Paddison had done with the trilogy. Now he’ll be working on the Hobbit website, which will presumably be equally cutting-edge.

Nikke Finke, a prominent entertainment reporter with her own website, has posted information concerning a Wednesday meeting between MGM and its bondholders. According to Finke’s sources, MGM cannot pay the interest on its debt and has asked the lenders to hold off on payments until February. If they refuse, MGM will most likely have to declare bankruptcy.

Finke presents a lot of facts and figures on this, but here’s the portion relevant to The Hobbit: “MGM said it needed $20M in short-term cash flow to cover overhead, and an additional $150 million to get through the end of year and continue funding its projects, and to start Peter Jackson’s Hobbit.”

Finke’s title includes the phrase, “Both ‘Hobbit’ and James Bond in Peril.” Just the sort of sensationalistic reporting fans don’t need. Yes, those two franchises are in peril as far as MGM is concerned. If it goes into bankruptcy and has to sell its most valuable assets, MGM probably wouldn’t be able to go on making films much longer. Its other series (e.g., Robocop) aren’t nearly as lucrative.

But that doesn’t mean that the production of The Hobbit is likely to be interrupted, let alone terminated. We don’t know what portion of the filming budget MGM is supposed to put up. It may be considerably less than Warner Bros.’s share. There is almost certainly a clause in the agreement between WB and MGM that dictates what would happen in the event of MGM being unable to pay its portion. It might be obligated to sell the distribution rights to The Hobbit to Warner Bros. Warner might even try to buy the ailing studio at a bargain price. I’ve got to believe that WB has covered all contingencies in relation to such a valuable property. It’s quite possible that WB executives would be quite happy to have MGM out of the way.

So far the lenders have not made their decision. They might accede to MGM’s request and suspend interest payments. A struggling studio is more valuable to them than a bankrupt one, and bankruptcy proceedings would delay any payments anyway.

We should also remember that no official announcements have been made. Finke’s story still has something of the status of rumor. Given her track record as a reporter and her many contacts in the film industry, however, it’s likely to be pretty accurate. Still, we should wait until more information comes out. And again, it’s MGM that has to worry about losing The Hobbit, not us.

My own guess would be that, if it came to a decision as to whether to sell off The Hobbit distribution rights or the James Bond series, MGM would sacrifice its Hobbit interests to save Bond. The Bond series has been running since the early 1960s and shows no signs of losing its public. Many feel that without the Bond franchise, MGM wouldn’t have much hope of surviving.

[Thanks to David Platt for alerting me to the Finke story.]

Everyone’s anxious for the Hobbit film to go into full-scale production. We haven’t heard officially that the script has been accepted, the budget calculated, and the project greenlit. Yet clearly there’s a sense that these things will be announced soon.

There’s another sort of anxiety felt by fans who want, many of them quite desperately, to go to New Zealand in the hopes of getting a job as an extra or as some sort of lowly employee during the production—anything that could help them be part of this vastly exciting endeavor. Some don’t necessarily think they could get such jobs, but they want to be able to get close enough to watch the filming.

I can tell that’s what’s going on because a lot of the pageloads on this blog—probably thousands since I posted them—are of the two entries I’ve written on these subjects: “Working on the Hobbit: Harsh realities for non-Kiwis” and “Getting near the Hobbit filming: More harsh realities.” Some Google searches that have brought people here over the past few days: “hobbit movie job,” “the hobbit film extras,” “the hobbit movie casting director,” “hobbit casting extras,” “extras for the hobbit,” and all possible combinations of such words. (Don’t worry, I can’t see visitors’ identities, just what links or searches they come from.)

In the first of those two entries, I talk about the practical obstacles to getting a job, most importantly the necessity for a work permit and the law requiring that jobs be awarded to New Zealanders unless none can be found to fill them. In the second, I talk about the security measures and logistics that prevent “spies” from getting close enough to catch more than a distant glimpse of filming on location.

I’d urge anyone who’s thinking about quitting a job or school or whatever to go to New Zealand with such goals to read those posts. Do more investigation before you make any decisions or set your hopes too high on this. Check on New Zealand’s immigration and labor laws. Look at other fan sites for further discussion of the obstacles. Keep in mind there are probably tens of thousands of people with the same dream and the same hope that they will be the one who somehow defies the enormous odds and becomes the exception. It’s not that I enjoy throwing cold water on people’s daydreams. But highly unrealistic goals can lead to heartache if pushed too hard, and a little cold water early on might help prevent that.

Guillermo del Toro has agreed to help out a struggling team of filmmakers by participating in a fundraising event. The film is Roots, Rock and Harmony, to be directed by local director Bonnie Slater. The event will be billed as “An Evening with Guillermo del Toro,” though also onstage will be Jonathan King, director of the horror film Black Sheep (a fun, gory film in the early Peter Jackson mode) and the upcoming fantasy adventure Under the Mountain (due for a December 10 release in New Zealand).

This Q&A event is scheduled for November 11 at the Paramount Theatre in Wellington. That’s a classic old movie theater on Courtenay Place, the wide street familiar to many, since it ends at the Embassy Theatre and was covered with a red carpet for the world premiere of The Return of the King.

I’m not sure how people in the Wellington region can get tickets. There’s no listing yet on the theater’s “events” page of its website. If you’re keen to attend, you might want to sign up for the Paramount’s “Enews” notifications or check out the contact info at the bottom of this page.

My strong suspicion is that no surprise news about The Hobbit will be forthcoming during the evening, but anyone who has watched an interview with Guillermo knows that he’s a charming, smart, and entertaining speaker.

Two days ago, in posting concerning the settlement of the Tolkien Trust lawsuit, I wrote “When lawsuits are settled out of court, the terms agreed upon are usually not made public, though I’m sure there will be speculation and rumors and perhaps some solid news on the subject.”

On the same day, The Hollywood Reporter has tried to oblige, posting an article with this statement: “Two independent sources with knowledge of the deal pegged the value to the Tolkiens and co-plaintiff Harper Collins at well over $100 million.”

Sorry, not good enough to count as a real rumor. When plaintiffs initially state that they are owed at least $150 million and later up the figure to at least $220 mil and eventually settle the case, we can pretty much assume that they received “well over $100 million.” No special knowledge needed for that. Let the real rumor-mongering begin.

There’s been a vast amount of online coverage of the Tolkien Trust lawsuit’s settlement, of course. A few interesting details got dropped into the Los Angles Times‘ article. I haven’t seen these elsewhere. (Although the Times is a general newspaper/newssite, it has a lot of contacts within the film industry.)

According to the Times,

In late July, Jackson was served with a deposition subpoena as he was announcing the imminent completion of the “Hobbit” script at pop-culture festival Comic-Con. It was not the first time the filmmaker had been involved in litigation surrounding the Tolkien properties.

In 2005, Jackson himself sued New Line, claiming he had been underpaid as much as $100 million. Producer Saul Zaentz also sued New Line twice. Those lawsuits were ultimately settled.

Each of the litigants criticized New Line’s refusal to let them independently audit all the movies. During the course of the Tolkien trustee litigation, the family was allowed to audit the second and third films, which it had been barred previously from doing.

I hadn’t heard about that subpoena. And the mention of Saul Zaentz’s second suit being settled is the first confirmation of that that I’ve encountered, though I’ve been presuming that it must have happened. I suspect that New Line settled that one quickly and quietly and that there was little attention paid.

The business about auditing the accounting records for the second and third films goes back to a revelation early in the case. The Tolkien Estate had been allowed to look at the books for Fellowship, but then New Line stopped showing them anything. I presume that what the Estate saw for Fellowship was probably the basis for its original estimate that NL owed them at least $150 million. Once they got a look at the rest of the accounts, the figure went up to $220 million. What the parties actually settled on has not been publicly specified.

Last month I posted concerning MGM’s current financial woes and restructuring. At the time, I speculated that MGM might eventually need to sell off its distribution rights to The Hobbit film as part of its struggle to pay off its debts.

Not surprisingly, I wasn’t the only one. In reporting the settlement of the Tolkien Trust lawsuit, Variety‘s article (expanded since I linked to it yesterday) added this remark: “With MGM undergoing a financial restructuring, speculation has grown in recent months that MGM might sell off the rights in order to help ease the burden from its massive debt load.” Given the stellar year it has been having, Warner Bros. would probably be in the bidding for those rights and might well be successful in obtaining them.

The settlement of the Tolkien Trust’s lawsuit against New Line Cinema has been acknowledged publicly and officially! The Hollywood Reporter‘s story is here. Christopher Tolkien has offered a comment: “The Trustees regret that legal action was necessary, but are glad that this dispute has been settled on satisfactory terms that will allow the Tolkien Trust properly to pursue its charitable objectives. The Trustees acknowledge that New Line may now proceed with its proposed films of ‘The Hobbit.'”

I never doubted that The Hobbit would get made, but now any possible impediment has been removed.

When lawsuits are settled out of court, the terms agreed upon are usually not made public, though I’m sure there will be speculation and rumors and perhaps some solid news on the subject.

Variety‘s story lacks the Christopher Tolkien quotations, but Bonnie Eskenazi, one of the main attorneys for the plaintiff, says her clients are “vindicated and completely satisfied” with the outcome.

Voronwë the Faithful, a lawyer, Tolkien fan, and regular Messages Boards participant on TheOneRing.net has broken the news that the Tolkien Trust’s lawsuit against New Line over money owed for the LOTR trilogy has reached a tentative settlement. He quotes a stipulation filed with the court, which states that “the parties have entered into a binding term sheet settling this matter, which term sheet is subject to certain necessary ratifications, which may take up to several weeks to obtain.” Voronwë expresses confidence that those ratifications will come through and that the settlement will proceed successfully. He suspects that these include guarantees that when The Hobbit comes out, the percentage of New Line’s receipts specified back in the 1969 contracts will be paid on it as well. Thanks to Voronwë for sharing this news with us!