From everybody here at TheOneRing.net, we wish you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas this year and all the best during the festive holiday!

Then check out this great interview with PJ and Philippa! ..."this is really where being a filmmaker differs from being a writer..." [More]

If you know your Tolkien you know that language was one of The Professor's chief passions at heart. Staffers Arathorn and Starlady point us to two fascinating articles along these lines at The University of Texas at Austin ala grad student Fred Hoyt: [More] and More]

Ringer Fan Bricklayer has put together this partial guide to Tolkien/LoTR TV in the USA over the Christmas period. [More]

Brandon writes: Thought you might like to know that Yahoo! Movies has a special about The Two Towers on their site. It clocks in at over 10 minutes long. All of the clips are ones that have been seen before, but it did include some new interviews with Peter Jackson and the rest of the cast. [More]

TORN community site AlleycatScratch provides patterns and information for people who want to make costumes. You can see for yourself the impressive results in these pictures taken from many lineparties around the country. [More]

If you haven't been to the Barliman's chatroom today's a great day to try us out! I was hanging around when I got this private message from one of our hard working ops: maegwen: I have a killer Howard Shore interview! [More Shore]

I thought this was a nice little light hearted story to post on Christmas Eve, take a look at this blurb from the UK's Sunday Telegraph. [More]

Sequel 37% higher than 'Fellowship,' breaks records. The second outing of the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy towered above o'seas B.O. competish during its debut. Current worldwide B.O. champ "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" has already shown serious foreign legs in its first five days, grossing $88 million, or 16% of the foreign cume for "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring." [More]

Pat writes: Every week on the Late Show webpage people can email in suggestions for a given top ten topic. This week the topic is "Top Ten Things That Suck About Being a Hobbit." At the end of the week ten suggestions will be chosen and posted on the webpage. [More]

Well, the characterisation of Faramir in The Two Towers certainly has caused some contention. But, do you really understand the nature of Faramir son of Denethor? TORn discussion board regular NZ Strider presented this interesting analysis on our boards yesterday. [More]
Updated!

Since filming went underway in 2000, The Two Towers has seen it's storyline been changed endless times due to necessity, time constraints, negative fan feedback and even by order of New Line. Hence, a huge chunk of material was either unused in the final theatrical cut of the movie or scrapped entirely. Here is just a list of some of the scenes that may or may not feature in The Two Towers Extended Edition next year. UPDATED [More]

If anyone was watching the BBC's National Vote 2002 show tonight, they may have noticed one of the presenters making a brief LotR reference in jest by saying some people were 'bred by Orcs under the tower of the Dark Lord'.

Many of us have already seen The Two Towers, but spare a thought for those poor souls that have to wait weeks and even months to see the latest installment in PJ's trilogy. We have the latest release dates for Bosnia-Herzegowina, Chile and Serbia for those who reside there, along with the latest release dates for everywhere else. [More]

'Eagerly anticipating the sequel to The Fellowship of the Ring, we at Skinema.com wondered whether it would match the heights reached by the first film. We are delighted to announce that "The Two Towers" is "all that," at least with respect to skin conditions. Each of the new characters introduced in this second film could do well to dial 1-800-SKIN-DOC on their elven cellular phone. Take a gander at Two Towers-worth of problem skin...' [More]

Thanks to Vail for the link!

After my previous story about the cameos in The Two Towers, we have received floods of mail about further cameos in the movie spotted by some sharp-eyed Ringers; as Viggo is talking to Hama's son about his blade in Helm's Deep, Viggo's own son is standing at a fire nearby; PJ's children being led into the caverns of Helm's Deep with the Rohan refugees; Alan Lee as a Rohan civilian.

Jedimistress sends us this link to this neat interactive Two Towers Timeline guide for either Frodo's and Sam's journey or Aragorn's, Legolas' , and Gimli's journey, which some dates have photos. [More]

Amazon.com has a Wish List Drive where you can buy a book or toy and have it sent to Today Show Gift Drive Wish List. NBC's Today show is working with over 200 organizations, including local Boys & Girls Clubs and the NYU Medical Center. The Lord of the Rings is on the list of gifts. So if any of yous feel like spending $39 to introduce JRR Tolkien to needy kids and improving their holiday season (or even buying any of the other items), here's the link - thanks to Kate: [More]

DiveTwin writes: Two Chicago Tribune columnists listed their Top 10 list for the year in two
different stories in the Sunday edition of the Tribune; Michael Wilmington has it as the #2 movie of the year, and Mark Caro has LOTR-TTT as the #4 of the year.

Frodo's Girl13 writes: The New Line store has just announced their new LOTR bobblehead dolls.... hey, I don't make 'em, I just report 'em! [More]

Confirmation from Sir Ian that there will be a super-duper DVD made after ROTK comes out, which he HOPES will include the blooper reels, the LOTR parodies like the French and Saunders one, and so on. [More] Thanks to Aisling for the link.

'New Line's sequel fantasy "Lord of the Rings: Two Towers" grossed an estimated $61.5 atop the weekend B.O. for a boffo five-day bow of $101.5. Miramax's historical epic "Gangs of New York," which unspooled with less than half the engagements of "Rings," finished fourth with $9.1 million.' [More]

Thanks to TORn staffer Asfaloth for the info!

Deirdre writes: The Mount Kisco Public Library and the North Castle Public Library will be joining forces for a special celebration of J.R.R. Tolkien's 111th birthday on January 3rd, 2003. [More]

The official Andy Serkis (Gollum) website has added some great new pics of Gollum, take a look! !!!Spoilers!!! [More]

Sylvadoc writes: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers pulverizes all the records of entries in Paris bringing yesterday 13 600 spectators for 29 theaters. By way of comparison, the first opus had brings together 11 715 spectators for 28 theaters and the last Harry Potter had joined together 12 625 for 28 theaters.

Telcontar writes: The Chicago Fellowship has been in the local news lately! We wanted to send on an article from Red Eye newspaper {no, it is not a Mordor publication!}, for which members of our chapter club were interviewed.[More]

Super Spy Peter has sent in some fantastic Quicktime encodes of one of the most recent 30 second tv spots for TTT - this one is another compilation of the more spectacular shots, including quick closeups of Gollum, the charge of the White Rider at Helm's Deep and more. It's all accompanied by Mr Voice bombarding you with snippets of critical acclaim. This probably isn't worth your bandwidth (or ours ;) if you've already seen the film, but for those who haven't and want to be utterly spoiled... [Low] (860KB) [Med] (2.0MB) [High] (4.2MB). Spoilers!

It's only been out five days, and The Two Towers has already entered the top ten in IMDb's top two hundred and fifty all time movies. The Two Towers currently resides in eight, five places behind predecessor The Fellowship of the Ring. Lord of the Rings is the second franchise to feature two films in the fan-voted list, with the first two Godfather films holding the sought-after one and three spots. [More]

Well, I'm almost box officed out. Towers is raking in piles of cash; there's not much else to say, really. But here's another story from USA Today. [More]

DVD Town has published some shots of Gollum, Sam, Frodo and Legolas from Two Towers. While not necessarily new, they are very very nice! Thanks to Ringer Fan Henning for the link! [More]

There's also this fabulous colour shot of Gollum that Ringer Spy Fraggle found. The eye colour has been altered, but everything else looks legit. [More] We've also set up a mirror on our server for everyone.
[TORn Mirror] Spoilers!!!

Well respected SF author David Brin has published a thought-provoking article on fantasy in general and Middle-earth in particular, and "how that famous trilogy has played an important role in the long struggle of romanticism against the modern world.". [More] Don't go there if you're not open to thinking about to new and challenging ideas. Thanks to Kam-Yung for the link.

The American Humane Association has a report on the making of the films, assessing how the animals on it were treated. The production gets a mixed review, though the overall sense is that they were open to guidance from the AHA where practices did not meet their standards. Many readers will be fascinated to learn how the horse tricks were 'really' done, with training and CGI enhancement. [More]

Have you ever wondered what The Lord of the Rings would read like if it wasn't written by J.R.R Tolkien? No? Well, some people obviously have, as Jeanne sent in this link to a fantastic message board thread featuring LotR snippets written in the style of such well know writers as Gilbert and Sullivan, Micky Spillane and Mark Twain. [More]

If you happened to be watching Film 2002 on BBC this morning, like OlorinTheWise was, you would have seen that The Fellowship of the Ring won the accolade of Film of the Year voted by viewers of the programme. Presenter and comedian Johnathan Ross presented Peter Jackson with the award during the TTT premiere in London last week.

Remember the ten minute preview of The Two Towers that featured on the theatrical release of The Fellowship of the Ring back in August? Well, a viewing of this after seeing The Two Towers indicates some deleted scenes which we may see in a The Two Towers Extended Edition. Brian mailed in to remind us of these scenes: Eowyn about to kill an Orc in Helm's Deep, Gandalf talking to Aragorn at night about the union of The Two Towers and Saruman talking about Gandalf Greyhame.

Carl writes: I just wanted to make sure that everyone know that in the new issue of Mad Magazine there is a great spoof on TTT, using screen shots from the movie itself and adding new dialogue to it.

Lluis writes: You have already reported the two Peter Jackson cameos, but his two children are also in the film, they are in blond wigs in the caverns of Helm's Deep, they appear twice in the caverns with a woman. I also think I saw Phillipa Bowens in the caverns on the left of a shoot. Alan Lee and Dan Hennah, both appear in the scene where Legolas says that 300 against 10,000 are hopeless odds and that they would all die. They appear behind Aragorn and play two elder men being armed.

TheOneRing.net staffer MrCere writes: Like many TORn folks I am hammered. The build up and delivery of a line party coinciding with PJ's movie is an amazing and draining process. The Salt Lake City line bought out the historic Villa theater, the grand old lady of single theater movie houses in the intermountain west. [More]

AndrewR writes: Supposedly TTT just took the record for the most pre-bought tickets to a movie ever in Australia - which was set just last month with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and before that by Titanic.

Chrisj4 writes that UK's Widescreen Magazine has a LOTR dedicated issue.

Anyone with scans of the issue, send them along!

Wiredkiwi sends us some additional info on the horses used for the films: A grey Andalusian stallion named Florian was used for close up and stunt work, and his (now) owner was the riding double for Liv Tyler. [More]

dapascha writes: On Wednesday december 18th The Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers opened with a record number of visitors. Over 50.000 people went to see the film on the first day and caused a record box-office opening of over 350,000 Euro. [More]

Andreas writes: According to Swedens number 1 newspaper TTT made about 9 million sek($1 million) on its opening day which is 38% more then FOTR., which makes it the highest grossing movie ever in Sweden beating last years record breaker FOTR which grossed 290 million kroner (29 million USD) on it's release date.

A gallery in Santa Monica, California is hosting a collection of the Brothers Hildebrandt, featuring Tolkien-inspired pictures. [More]

Bill writes: Jim Rygiel and Randall Cook spoke at a session at the Australian Effects and Animation Festival at the beginning of this month. [More]

Look out for two quick appearances by Peter Jackson in TTT. One is amongst the crowd of wild men, as they run towards the camera after Saruman's pep talk; the other is on the wall of Helm's Deep. Nikolaj writes: "As the Uruk-Hais are trying to batter down the gate to the castle, the defenders open some sort of shutters and hurl rocks at the attackers.PJ is one of the rock-hurlers. You see him briefly. He is carrying a piece chain armor not only covering the body but also with a kind of hood." Others have reported this too, thank you all.

The second film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy has broken New Zealand's opening day box office take record. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers netted over $750,000 on Friday. The record was previously held by The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the ring, which took $720,933 on its opening day. [More]

The Sun Newspaper writes: "The new Lord of the Rings blockbuster has taken more booking than any other film this year, cinema chain Odeon said. The Two Towers- second in the movie trilogy- opened in the UK yesterday and is set to be one of the biggest hits of all time. Odeon said advanced booking had already topped £1.5 million. That beats both the second Harry Potter and latest Bond, Die Another Day."

Middle Earth isn’t such a long way from Huntington. Just ask Grima Wormtongue, the corrupted counselor to King Theoden and slithering spy of Saruman played by Huntington’s own Brad Dourif in "The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers," in theaters this week. [More]

I arranged a pre-movie party at the Unison pool hall in St.Laurent, the manager George was very very accommodating and helped us out with all the little details you need to get in line for events like this. Nicole and Seb, two ringers who were such a great help last year, arrived again to help us, you guys were amazing help thanks! [More]

Mikko writes: According to the distributor, FS-Film, The Two Towers broke all previous records: 30 427 people saw it on 18th December. That is 23 percent more than with FotR a year ago! They are now expecting TTT to attract even more viewers than FotR which was seen by 714 000 Finns.

It's hard to believe that such a serene, refined actress could be the offspring of a rowdy rocker, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler. Yet, it's Liv Tyler's natural-born grace, intelligence, and beauty that make her perfect for the role of Arwen, the Elven enchantress of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. [More]

The Star reports: The Paramount theatre in downtown Toronto had the top opening day box office gross in North America for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, ringing up $114,124 in the first 24 hours of release. When three of the theatre's screening rooms sold out for the midnight opening Wednesday morning, two more screens were added. Across Canada and the U.S., The Two Towers grossed $26 million on its opening day, smashing The Fellowship of the Rings, which opened with $18 million in its first day of release.

The actor who plays Gollum in the latest Lord of the Rings film has revealed details of a spoof take he shot for The Two Towers. The scene involved Andy Serkis as Gollum pretending to be interviewed as if he was on American TV channel E! In the comedic scene Gollum reveals that he auditioned for the role of Dobby in Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets. [More]

Director Peter Jackson doesn't ease us back into the world of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy at the beginning of the second film, The Two Towers. Instead, he hurls us headfirst into the movie screen, as if through the windshield of a crashing car. Towers begins not with a stately summary of the prior film, The Fellowship of the Ring, but by reprising one of its most famous moments and then going on to show the grand pyrotechnics previously kept "off-stage." [More]

The despicable Saruman the White cuts an imposing figure cloaked in white robes, with a long metallic staff clutched in one claw and a prosthetic nose that boasts its own architecture. An imposing, if not a little daunting, 6ft 4in (1.93m) figure, despite the fact that a team of minions is currently rummaging around in his skirts. [More]

The orcs launched their assault on the world's cinemas yesterday as The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers recorded a $42m (£26.2m) opening day haul in 14 countries. [More]

Some silly 'news' from E! Online...take a look. [More]

Variety reports: As his character Frodo Baggins gets closer to the dark mountains of Mordor in "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," Elijah Wood is headed for "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," a Focus Features drama starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet.

Carlo writes: I was VERY LUCKY to be able to go and catch the Philippine Gala Premiere held in Glorietta 4 on December 18th. There were many people there, no celebrities though and it was strictly invitational to the sponsors. I wasn't a sponsor though, my friend had extra tickets. There was free food and drinks for those who attended and it was a glorious day.

Even though the film just opened, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is already on many critics' radar to clean up at the big movie awards this year. And one of the most celebrated performances comes from an inhuman character who's best described as an "it." [More]

Laurean writes: As we wait for the opening of TTT here in Japan (in February...) FOTR will broadcast for the first time on television through the satellite Skyperfect. From Dec. 21 to Jan 17, Power Paltz channels will show the movie non-stop! For this occasion, an exclusive program of 15 minutes about TTT will be broadcast during the night of 21 to 22. It is interesting to know that is the movie is on pay-per-view, but the program is free!

BoxOfficeMojo.com has posted a feature on The Two Towers, how it compares to FOTR, and what its potential first weekend take will be. [More]

We've posted many of these, but Decipher has now gone and put all thei Two Towers trading cards up in the one place for your viewing enjoyment! [More] Spoilers!!

Here's a transcript of the Sean Astin MSN chat for everyone who was unable to make it. Thanks to Ringer Fan Nicole for making this available to us. [More]

When Harry gushes, boy does he gush. I get the feeling he enjoyed Two Towers. Somehow, I get the feeling he really quite liked it. Just a feeling, yknow? [More]

Ringer Super Spy Cinderz has sent us the final Two Towers TV spot - The Wait Is Over ... in glorious Quicktime. Sadly, there wasn't any new footage in the "one day to go" tv spots, but this one does have all-new footage here! Of course, if you've already seen the film, there's nothing new, so we only recommend downloading for those who haven't seen the movie yet. [More]

The Sydney Morning Herald has posted some cool video interviews with Andrew Lesnie, David Wenham and Miranda Otto from the Sydney premiere last night. Thanks to Kane for the link! [More] (Requires Windows Media Player)

Ian writes: I just finished the LOTR TT junket in Wellington. We've finalised the web pages and so at www.dodgymag.com you can now find Premiere pics, An exclusive interview with Richard Taylor - "Creating Worlds", An exclusive interview with Karl Urban - "Barefoot and Ambitious", Exhibition gallery and more. [More]

Elf Maiden writes: Yesterday us geeks visited the Te Papa Lord of the Rings exhibit in Wellington. Unfortunately we were not allowed to bring cameras and I was not bold enough to hide mine under my shirt. [More]

New Line reports that Two Towers recorded a massive opening day at the box office - earning $42 million (US dollars) worldwide. The breakdown is $26 million in the USA, and $16 million internationally. The film has also received 2 Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture and Best Director. [More]

Ringer Spy Brian dropped us a line with this link to Toy Biz's new action figure - Gollum!

Update: It's been brought to our attention that this was originally was sourced from American Dream Comics. In fact, AMD has much more information - check it out! [More]

Loki sends in the early numbers from Germany: TTT had the best opening day of all time (and remember this was Wednesday) with around 610.000 admissions and a gross of over 4 mill.

Garfeimao writes: OK, the Two Towers is out, and most of us went to see it at our local Line Party events on Tuesday at midnight, so what's next? Well, in Los Angeles, the Irvine Line Party is having a second day of activities this Saturday, December 21, including a Blood Drive. [More]

If you were blown away by TTT then Moriarty is your champion. [More]

Emedhilwin writes: Those who have MSN can chat with Sean Astin tonight at 7:30 Mountain Time. [More]

Don't forget to come on down to the Silent Movie theater on Fairfax this Saturday [Dec 21st] for a day of Middle-earth Gaming brought to you by the folks at Black Label Games. Join the Gaming Havens crew and all the Tolkien Gamers for a day filled with news and artwork from the new book based titles from Black Label Games. Also, fans from the official TORn Line Party at the VISTA will receive a limited edition Faramir card just for showing up. Best of all, it's totally Free! [More]

Ankh writes: The opening of "the Two Towers" just set a new record in Denmark on the night of the 18th. With 80.000 tickets sold and a gross of 6.2 million Danish kroners it is the biggest opening ever. The first movie was seen by more than 1.3 million and it looks as if teh sequel is goring to just as well!

From lewrockwell.com: An article by John Yatt from the Guardian of December 2, 2002 attacks Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings with amazing hostility. He not only dismisses the book as "a fake, a forgery, a dodgy copy" but he also attacks it as harmful, "The Lord of the Rings is racist." He ends with this judgement, "Strip away the archaic turns of phrase and you find a set of basic assumptions that are frankly unacceptable in 21st-century Britain." [More]

Shelagh sends along some other TTT nominations, including Gollum and other TTT things at Critic's Choice Awards. [More]

And the Critic's Circle nomination for Peter Jackson as Best Director. [More]

Brandon Gray - BoxOfficeMojo.com

'The Two Towers' is estimated to have taken in a whopping $27-28 million at 3,622 theaters and an estimated 6,500 screens on Wednesday. That shatters the $18.2 million December opening day record that 'The Fellowship of the Ring' posted last year at 3,359 venues and around 5,700 screens. It also stands as the sixth biggest opening day ever: Opening Day Chart. The estimate is based on the $21.8 million it generated at 2,526 theaters reporting to Nielsen EDI, the firm that tabulates over 80% of theaters' box office revenue for the industry. The actual number will be posted at the site at around noon Pacific time in the daily section.

According to a Salt Lake City newspaper TORnados really know how to line party. Here is a report that chronicles the exclusive Salt Lake City TORnsibs only event! [More]

We just got a report from Ringer Miller that the estimated first day earnings of The Two Towers in US theaters is $27.3 million. Not to shabby! According to our friend Brandon Gray at Boxofficemojo.com, that places TTT at 2nd place in all-time Wednesday release earnings, behind SW EPI. [More]

CNN reports: Two movies going head to head at the box office this week are also up against each other for top honors in the Golden Globe awards. "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" and "Gangs of New York" were both nominated for best motion picture drama in a ceremony Thursday morning in Los Angeles. [More]

The entire list of nominations is coming soon!