It's lord of the mags

Hype over The Lord of the Rings is reaching fever pitch in the United States and Britain, with New Zealand director Peter Jackson's $650 million film trilogy featuring on the covers of major magazines.

America's Entertainment Weekly has a special double issue, and British style magazine The Face has a cover story on Elijah Wood, who plays the hobbit Frodo. Wood also featured on the cover of weekly London listings magazine Time Out this month.

Britain's Sunday Times newspaper will this weekend feature a "special collector's issue" in its magazine section, as a tribute to Jackson's project and author J.R.R. Tolkien. Sir Ian McKellan as Gandalf will be on the cover.

Last week internet magazine Salon.com posted a lengthy article on how Wellington-based Jackson convinced Hollywood to bankroll the project, while American film magazine Total Film plans to devote an issue to the trilogy.

Sir Ian, however, will not be at the New Zealand premiere of The Fellowship of the Ring on December 19 at Wellington's Embassy Theatre.

Roadshow Film Distributors announced yesterday that Wood will attend, as well as Orlando Bloom, who plays Legolas; Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan, who play the hobbits Pippin and Merry; and Australian actor Hugo Weaving, who plays the elf Elrond.

Meanwhile, the October issue of American computer and technology magazine Wired has a cover story on the film's popularity with internet-savvy fans.

The lengthy article, which details the obsessions of New Zealand and overseas fans, opens with the debate on a photograph taken last year on a set for the film.

The photo showed a wizard-like character impaled on a spike. It caused intense debate among fans as no such scene occurs in Tolkien's fantasy classic.

The press speculated at the time that it could have been Gandalf, then reported that it was more likely to be the evil wizard Saruman. Even Sir Ian waded in on his website, saying it was not him.

- NZPA

Feature: Lord of the Rings