We’ve just added a new perk to our One Last Party crowdfund campaign! For those of you who can’t join us in Los Angeles in February, you could have EXCLUSIVE access to watch the live stream from the event.

This will cover the ‘stage show’ at the party, as well as ‘behind the scenes’ footage with party goers – both cast and fellow fans. The live stream will ONLY be accessible to those who pledge to the Indiegogo campaign. Right now we have 200 ‘perks’ available, for a $50 pledge. Once these have sold out, we will try to make more available – but the price will go up! So snag them whilst you can, and join us to celebrate online, even if you can’t be there in person! TheOneLastParty.com

Martin Freeman has been invited to The One Last Party – and he loves the fans from TheOneRing.net! Here he is, chatting with staffer greendragon, at The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies World Premiere in London. They talk abut the influences of classic comedy on his portrayal of Bilbo, the fun of playing John Watson, and how much the support of the fans has meant to him. You could join him at the party – tickets available (until Jan 18th, NOT Dec 31st, in spite of what the video says) here.

 

Join us in Los Angeles in February at The One Last Party

one last party logo We’re hosting a Party of Special Magnificence next February — a toast to all SIX movies, both LOTR trilogy and The Hobbit.

Visit our Indiegogo campaign page to grab your tickets and help make it happen — so we can all celebrate Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth movies together!

More from the press junket for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies World Premiere in London! This time it’s three elves who were chatting with staffer greendragon – discussing topics such as what exactly is the quality an actor playing an elf has to find, and how to let go and just trust the creative but chaotic genius of Peter Jackson!

Off camera, all three were invited to join us at The One Last Party. They were excited to party with fans – Evangeline Lilly even said that, although that is her one week off in the year, she might break into her down time to be with us! Don’t forget, if you pledge to the crowdfunding campaign before 12noon EST on Dec 31st, you could win a cool prize! Full details here.

 

Join us in Los Angeles in February at The One Last Party

one last party logo We’re hosting a Party of Special Magnificence next February — a toast to all SIX movies, both LOTR trilogy and The Hobbit.

Visit our Indiegogo campaign page to grab your tickets and help make it happen — so we can all celebrate Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth movies together!

During the press junket for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies world premiere in London, TORn staffer greendragon had the pleasure of sitting down with various cast members, to chat about the film, their experiences on set, and their future projects. She was also able to invite them all to come and join us at The One Last Party next February! (Tickets available here: The One Last Party)

Here is her conversation with Luke Evans – who revealed some fascinating insights into Bard’s character. Enjoy!

 

 

Join us in Los Angeles in February at The One Last Party

one last party logo We’re hosting a Party of Special Magnificence next February — a toast to all SIX movies, both LOTR trilogy and The Hobbit.

Visit our Indiegogo campaign page to grab your tickets and help make it happen — so we can all celebrate Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth movies together!

We’re still working hard to make #OneLastParty – a Party of Special Magnificence – happen, so we can all celebrate together next February! We had many requests from fans who hoped we could extend the deadline, so after much consideration we went ahead and extended to January 18th. It was tricky to choose a date – of course we all want to reach our target as soon as possible, but we wanted to take into account the fact that some folks don’t get paid until Jan 15th, and may want to purchase tickets then.

So – due to popular demand, you now have until 18th January to pledge, and to persuade all your friends to buy tickets, too!

The goal, of course, is still to reach that target as soon as possible – and to that end, we are holding an exciting GIVEAWAY for all those who pledge before 12noon EST on December 31st! Everyone who has already pledged – and all who pledge between now and then – will be entered into a draw to WIN a Menu from our ‘One Dragon, One Party’ Oscar Moot held 2014 at the Cat & Fiddle restaurant in Los Angeles. This beautiful item, printed on a thick card stock paper, golden marbled, using the Shire Regular font designed by Daniel Reeve (the official Calligrapher for the films), was SIGNED at the party by Adam Brown (Ori), Craig Parker (Haldir) and Dean O’Gorman (Fili).

One Dragon, One Party menu signed by Dean O'Gorman, Craig Parker and Adam Brown
One Dragon, One Party menu signed by Dean O’Gorman, Craig Parker and Adam Brown

To be in with a chance to win this item, you simply need to have made a pledge of ANY level to the campaign before 12noon EST, Wednesday 31st December. You can give $10 and be part of the big thank you card we will send to PJ et al; you can pledge $200 for a party ticket; you can even snag some exclusive items at higher ‘perk’ levels, (such as a solid gold One Ring from Badali Jewelry, which retails for $924, but which you could claim for only $600 – and that includes your party ticket, too!) Names will be entered into the draw for as many times as an individual has pledged – so if you’ve pledged twice, you have two chances to win!

A name will be drawn at random and the winner will be notified by email, and the signed menu shipped out to that lucky person asap. This means that the winner will receive the menu no matter what the final result of our campaign is. Someone is guaranteed to win this special collectible signed by three cast members – all you have to do, to be in with a chance to win, is make a pledge!

And if you need any further persuasion to join the party, here’s a video where Billy Boyd chats with staffer greendragon. Towards the end of the interview, he talks about the music he’d like to play at the party; let’s make it happen, so Billy can come and serenade us all! #OneLastParty – see you there!


Join us in Los Angeles in February at The One Last Party

one last party logo We’re hosting a Party of Special Magnificence next February — a toast to all SIX movies, both LOTR trilogy and The Hobbit.

Visit our Indiegogo campaign page to grab your tickets and help make it happen — so we can all celebrate Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth movies together!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWe at TheOneRing.net want you all to join us in saying a proper ‘Fond Farewell’ and heartfelt ‘Thank You’ to all the hard working Cast and Crew of all six of the Middle-earth films. There will be a giant ‘Thank You’ card at our planned “The One Last party: There and Back Again” event on February 21, 2015 in Hollywood. We’ve done this before, back at the Return of the One Party in 2004, so we know how to do big cards.

Now we know that not everyone can join us at ‘The One Last Party” so we have a special Perk on our Indiegogo campaign just for you. In fact, every single Perk level includes your name on the card, but we did create the lowest level Perk just for those who can’t attend, but would like to be included in this special ‘one of a kind’ Thank you greeting. The images here are from 2004, but they give you an idea of what to expect from this year’s Epic card. And for those who do attend the party, you will have the opportunity to personalize your greeting a little bit more at the party. This ‘Thank You’ card will either be given to, or sent down to New Zealand to be delivered to Peter Jackson.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

For the past decade and a half, Peter Jackson, his amazing cast and the equally amazing crew have handcrafted these magnificent cinematic representations of Middle-earth for all of us to enjoy. Along the way, we have created a vibrant fan community where we can be found chatting on the message boards, meeting up at theater Line Parties, attending conventions together, making pilgrimages to New Zealand, and attending Oscar parties. We are a very social fandom who celebrates both the creative and academic side of Middle-earth, where you can find people displaying amazing costume designs right next to people who can recite and translate all of Tolkien’s Elvish poetry, and each can call the other ‘friend’. So while we want to thank Peter and the rest of the cast and crew for making films we can all enjoy, we especially want to thank them for the much more important Fan Community that has been thriving in big cities and tiny little towns all around the world since 2001.

Please join us in sending out our thanks by supporting our campaign for The One Last Party: There and Back Again, or sharing it far and wide with all your friends and family. Let’s all enjoy each other’s company #OneLastTime.

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Join us in Los Angeles in February at The One Last Party

one last party logo We’re hosting a Party of Special Magnificence next February — a toast to all SIX movies, both LOTR trilogy and The Hobbit.

Visit our Indiegogo campaign page to grab your tickets and help make it happen — so we can all celebrate Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth movies together!

moneyThe marketing campaign of #OneLastTime for “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies,” might have been a little short-sighted as now that most readers of TheOneRing.net and other rabid Tolkien fans have seen the film (sorry Australia friends, paddle over to New Zealand) studios are probably thinking they should have gone with #OneDozenMoreTimes.

But the Sting can’t be too great, because the film is creating liquid gold that is flowing from consumers around the world. Rentrack, that tracks such things, shows that it has a robust domestic box office, so the little film from New Zealand has earned $90 million in Yankee coin. That is a more than solid five-day total and while it could have optimally earned closer to $100 million, that number is far from disappointing. In fact, the studios should use it to pour a floor like the one in Thorin’s hall of madness to, you know, impress the other studios.

The film has such white-hot, world-wide appeal however, that unlike some films that rely on U.S. consumers, this film hardly needs them in its march to $1 billion. Now, to be clear, that billion with a “B” sounds pretty nice but should the movie “only” make, say $900 million, all but inevitable now, that is still a pretty incredible figure. Our consumer brains like to hear the “B,” but the movie is a hit either way and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.

THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUGGlobally, it is on fire, doing great business in virtually every territory, sucking up a figure of $265 million since its open. Both the previous Hobbit movies earned more than $700 million internationally and this film is ahead of those in virtually every market. Domestic tracking would put it at $250 million plus for a conservative total of $950 million. My gut tells me the sentimental “last chance for Middle-earth in the theater” (you are welcome movie studio marketing departments) will give this film a little extra run. So the real question is: Will the Hobbit make more than the last Transformers movie? That shows at Boxofficemojo.com with a total of $1.08 billion. One of those two films is destined to be the biggest financially of the year. I generally dislike movie vs. movie comparisons, but I am both cheering for WB’s fantasy flick and against Michael Bay’s painful, loud snooze fest.

TOTALS: Domestic: $ 90.6 million + International: $265 million = Total worldwide: $355.6 million.

It is funny how big hits like “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and “The Lego Movie,” both fall well short of that $1 billion mark and are praised as giant successes — which they are. But, anybody remember some of the negative buzz with last year’s “Desolation of Smaug” being “disappointing?” It only made $958 million. Before that, some folks tried to say “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” was “doomed to failure” and then when it obviously wasn’t doomed or a failure, it was then termed as “not quite so bad, but still has no shot at $1 billion.”

First, that is just an arbitrary mark that looks good on a resume but it did cross that arbitrary mark despite the cries of “failure.” Bad buzz, even when it is fake, can hurt the box office. I got mad and wrote Death of ‘Hobbit’ at box office greatly exaggerated. I will not lie, punching holes in absurd journalism made it one of my favorite pieces I have ever put together for TORn. Also, it is relevant to how BOTFA is kicking some trash. So yeah, I had to link to it #OneLastTime.

PJ_Carrow_Bruno2Guardians will out-earn Hobbit in the U.S., but can’t touch it internationally. Marvel/Disney’s world-wide total will be approximately the same as Hobbit’s international-only money. Warners could have let everybody in the U.S. watch it for free and it would have earned the same as Guardians. #NotAFailure

The latest Hunger Games flick, “Mockingjay: Part 1,” is sitting around $640 million for its world total. Great numbers, but not Hobbit numbers. And Lego, as great a success as it is (and a great movie), isn’t half Hobbit 3’s final — even with Gandalf in it. In fact BOTFA is closing in on it fast.

BONUS TEASERS: While we are here, I will take a second to tease a pretty incredible Ian McKellen interview coming in the next day or so. That sounds immodest of me to say since it is my piece, but it is the journalist getting out of the way and letting Sir Ian talk. I really think it will connect with readers. He spoke at length about a lot of things including who else he thinks could have played Gandalf in The Hobbit films if he decided not to return. We also have some exclusive set photos of Peter Jackson coming in a day or two, one of which I included here in a small version. And if you haven’t heard, we are throwing a party! Details below.

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Join us in Los Angeles in February at The One Last Party

one last party logo We’re hosting a Party of Special Magnificence next February — a toast to all SIX movies, both LOTR trilogy and The Hobbit.

Visit our Indiegogo campaign page to grab your tickets and help make it happen — so we can all celebrate Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth movies together!