Peter Jackson Spots The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug with Howard Shore

Recently, director Peter Jackson live-blogged his last day of shooting on The Hobbit trilogy.  One of the many things that took place on that day was some spotting of the second film with composer Howard Shore. What he says should be encouraging for those who suffered any level of disappointment with The Unexpected Journey.  If you are wanting some new thematic material, sounds like that's what they have in  store for us ...

Here's what Jackson said...

The score for Film 2 is going to be terrific. Last year, we were a little frustrated because we had to revisit so many of the LotR themes - The Shire, Rivendell, Galadriel, Gollum, and the Ring - we did this because I'm wanting these 3 Hobbit movies to have great unity with the Rings films in design, wardrobe, story and music, so it meant "An Unexpected Journey" had to acknowledge what had gone before. But this time around, apart from a couple of Ring moments, it's all new: Beorn, Mirkwood, The Woodland Realm, Laketown, Bard and Smaug all give Howard the chance to write brand new themes, and he's knocking it out of the park!

So how does this blip make you feel about the upcoming score for The Desolation of Smaug?

You can read more Peter Jackson's Facebook page.

Howard Shore Returns to Middle Earth to score THE HOBBIT

In one of the bigger film music announcements of 2008, director Guillermo Del Toro and producer Peter Jackson have confirmed composer HOWARD SHORE's involvement on the next two films of the franchise: THE HOBBIT and the untitled sequel.

Indeed this is good news, but perhaps the biggest film-music-no-brainers ever, too! Well, let the hype, speculation, and debates begin. We have until 2010 before THE HOBBIT and its score is ready, but again, as mentioned in our interview with Howard Shore, he had been toying with ideas for the hobbit way back in 2006.

With this many years to "toy around" and now a couple more to get serious with, THE HOBBIT and sequel should be spectacular. This announcement would have to place these two projects at the top of just about everyone's "most anticipated" list.

You can check the full transcription of the chat hosted by WETA with both the director and producer here. Lots of cool preliminary info.

Top Stuff from 2007 #1 - Peter Jackson and The Hobbit

1 - PETER JACKSON and THE HOBBIT

The questions and rumors floated around for months. Would there be a Hobbit feature film and would Peter Jackson and New Line Studios ever work out their differences just in case there a film was green-lit?

Finally at the close of 2007, a great shout of joy swept across the kingdoms of this world as news hit the net that Peter Jackson would indeed be involved with New Line's THE HOBBIT. And not only THE HOBBIT but another film to boot! Oh yes this was indeed the coolest news of 2007.

Ok. So it wasn't perfect news. While it looks like PJ will only be producing and not directing, just having him involved at all brings buoyancy to the hopes of many... not only those who want to see these films done and done properly, but to many who want more from composer Howard Shore. Peter Jackson's involvement has all but cemented the fact that Howard Shore's music will sing out from Middle Earth again. Sure there are a mountain of legalities and contracts and other things that most fans don't care about that could get in the way, but come on! Who could even try to follow up Shore's monumental work for THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY? Only Shore could possibily live up to the ultra-high expectations that will be on music for these two films.

As you may remember, way back in 2006, Howard Shore mentioned to Tracksounds that he had already starting playing with themes and music for a Hobbit-film. Just think about what he's been doing (unofficially) since then?

So why is the Coolest news of 2007? Think about it with me. Now for the next 2 or 3 years, at the very least, we will be fully engaged in clamouring for every bit of HOBBIT movie news we can get ahold of and for every bit of score news as well. Fans can set their sites on 2010...their expectations again on the highest of settings...delighting in their sweet agony of patience. Then, with the release of movies come the original soundtracks. Then, the extended editions of the films will come to DVD. Then, the complete recordings of each score will follow. That single announcement has just set soundtrack-aholics up for the next 4 years.

So there you have it. The Coolest Stuff of 2007. You see, 2007 didn't suck so bad afterall.

Peter Jackson's CROSSING THE LINE with King Kong Snippet

Just came across this interesting bit of video from a secret little project that director PETER JACKSON has been working on. From what I read, it is a 15 minute short film that utilizes some new camera technology entitled "RED" and the video quality of even this quicktime clip is amazing.

Check out this post at RedUser.Net to download

There are a few clips circling the net. Here is a 35 second piece that sounds as if its been temped with JAMES NEWTON HOWARD's KING KONG.

Enjoy!