Tag: The Hobbit

Metacritic this week compiled lists of the best-reviewed films released during 2000-2009, and it was a reminder that we live in the golden age of fanboy films – six of the top 10 films were fantasy or animated features of the sort that we cover right here at Hero Complex. And at the top of the list? The 2006 masterpiece “Pan’s Labyrinth” by director Guillermo del Toro, and I can’t think of a better film to hold that lofty spot. – Geoff Boucher RECENT AND RELATED “The Hobbit” is just the beginning of the del Toro Decade Can “Hobbit” escape the shadow of “Rings”? Daniel Radcliffe as Bilbo? “Potter” stars says thanks but no Guillermo del Toro will take Disney on a scary ride Peter Jackson: Fans are “fed up with the lack of original ideas” Photo credit: Picturehouse

I wish that, just for a moment, Ian McKellen actually possessed some of those nature-bending powers that he wielded in the “Lord of the Rings” and “X-Men” films because it would have been a delight to see him turn the set of “The View” into a charred crater. The esteemed 70-year-old thespian was a guest on the ABC daytime show last week and the footage is excruciating to watch. I have to say I didn’t know much about this show beyond its reputation for shrill banality but, after watching this, I’m discouraged by the fact that this a nationally aired show. (Thanks by the way to Jay West for sending me the link.) McKellen was on to promote “The Prisoner,” the new six-episode AMC series that begins Nov. 15, but he was met with a quartet of hosts who had their own flaky ...

EXCLUSIVE  Who will star as Bilbo Baggins in “The Hobbit“? You can cross one name off the list: Daniel Radcliffe, of “Harry Potter” fame, says he has no interest in any new project with “any wizards in it.” “I’d have to say, ‘Thanks but no thanks,’ not that anyone has asked me,” the 20-year-old actor told me last week in England. “Honestly, I don’t think they would want me anyway, it’s just too close. Whatever I do next, I don’t think there will be any wizards in it!” Radcliffe is now at work on the seventh and eighth films in the “Potter” franchise, and by the 2011 release of the last film in the series, he will have spent more than a decade inhabiting the role of the orphaned boy wizard. The sixth “Potter” film, released in the U.S. on July 15, ...

Who doesn’t love a good casting rumor? The whisper we keep hearing in recent days is that the name of the lead star in Guillermo del Toro’s ”The Hobbit” will be announced next week at Comic-Con International . A few people also point out that David Tennant, one of the purported candidates for the role of Bilbo Baggins, just happens to be making his very first trip to the San Diego expo to promote “Doctor Who,” a television series that he will soon be leaving behind. Peter Jackson, the producer of the two-film “Hobbit” series that begins its theater run in 2011, is also slated to appear this year, and, well you can see the dot-connecting possibilities. … I think Tennant would be exceptional in the role, but I’m even more enthused about the notion of seeing James McAvoy portray the itinerant Bilbo. The Scotsman has shown amazing versatility in roles in “Atonement,” ”The Last King of Scotland” and “Wanted,” ...

One of the gentle souls in the movie business is Guillermo del Toro, and I always look forward to my interviews with him. This is a longer version of my latest story on Del Toro, which is scheduled to run Thursday on the cover of the Los Angeles Times Calender section.  Fantasy and horror fans, prepare yourself for the Decade of Del Toro. On the far side of the globe, in New Zealand, filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is now in his seventh month of labor on “The Hobbit,” a $300-million epic that will be told over two films in 2011 and 2012. But you can also find the Guadalajara native on the shelf of your local bookstore with his just-released debut novel, “The Strain,” the opening installment of a vampire trilogy he already has mapped out. That’s only the beginning. The 44-year-old Del ...