Miami Mofo writes: While at B&N to buy Jude Fisher’s ‘LotR:RotK Visual Companion’, I was leafing through an imported October, 2003 issue of ‘Empire Magazine’ where I read the following in a report written as filming drew to a close in July, 2003:
‘Hobbit extra Peter Eastwood (no relation to Clint), a naturally diminutive tax inspector from Auckland blessed with startingly large eyes, stubs out a cigarette and grins from ear to pointy ear. “I was going to be Sean Astin’s stand-in,” he announces to anyone in the vicinity whom he suspects to be a member of the press, “but I’ve been a Hobbit, another Hobbit and a Dwarf in the Council of Elrond, and now I’m that first Hobbit again. ‘During lunch, waiting to be rustled back to finish a secret “Shire party scene” for the end of the movie, the Hobbits tend to stick together. …’
A “Secret Shire Party scene”? This tidbit of info, coupled with AICN’s news that we will not see Saruman’s demise in LotR:RotK makes me wonder if P.J. made a last minute decision to change Saruman’s end as originally filmed for one that takes place in the Shire, to be used in the Extended Edition DVD.
If so, I would certainly welcome this last minute change. Best regards!
