peter jackson

The next cinematic installment of J.R.R. Tolkien's written masterpiece "The Hobbit" returns to U.S. theaters on December 13, but in the meantime, be sure to check out a new trailer for the film courtesy of Warner Bros.

As expected, Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" picks up where "An Unexpected Journey" left off. It continues the tale of Bilbo Baggins' journey to take back the Lonely Mountain from the gold-hungry dragon Smaug in an attempt to reclaim the Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor. All of the actors who played the main characters -- Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, and Thorin Oakenshield -- from the first film reprise their respective roles once again.… Read more

Middle-earth buffs now have something to rejoice about -- Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson announced today that his movie adaptation of "The Hobbit" will be a trilogy rather than the previously announced two-part sequel.

He made the announcement on Facebook, saying that while he was editing the first and second movies in the series, he realized how much of the story was being left out.

"We were really pleased with the way the story was coming together, in particular, the strength of the characters and the cast who have brought them to life," he wrote. "All … Read more

"The Hobbit" is possibly one of the first movies to be filmed in 48fps, or double the framerate of tradition theatrical releases. According to a Facebook entry by its director Peter Jackson, the switch promises significantly higher clarity and smoothness, especially when it comes to fast movements and panning shots.

Some viewers, however, were unimpressed after a preview of the movie at the CinemaCon trade show in Las Vegas. A rival studio's projectionist was even quoted by the Los Angeles Times, saying that the film looked like a made-for-TV movie and was too accurate and too clear. … Read more

Here's something for "Lord of the Rings" fans eagerly anticipating the upcoming movie "The Hobbit."

In a recent post on his Facebook page, director Peter Jackson gave fans a sneak peek at some of the innovative techniques used to shoot the film in 3D. The movie is being made with 48 RED Epic digital cameras, and since it's shot in 3D, those cameras have to be paired and positioned a specific distance apart.

Sounds easy? It isn't. While the RED cameras are a lot smaller than regular film cameras used in Hollywood, the lenses they use make it nearly impossible to place them close to each other. The filmmakers had to engage the help of 3ality Technica, a company that makes custom camera rigs, to create specialized mounts for the cameras used in "The Hobbit." … Read more

New Zealand may be known as the home of "Lord of the Rings," but you may not know that it's also the unofficial birthplace of "Avatar."

You see, Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop in Wellington is behind the special effects of films such as "Heavenly Creatures" and "Prince Caspian." But more famously, it has produced the effects in both the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and "Avatar." In fact, the company was working up until July to finish work on the Extended Edition of the "Avatar" Blu-ray version. … Read more

Today we're graced by the presence of an actual superhero. Yes, Natali Del Conte has been transformed into the marginally intimidating geek hero "Motherboard." Neither a mother nor a board, Motherboard was sent to this planet to fight crime with her magic gadgets. Too bad she must recharge every night on her magnetic induction bed. Find out the etymology behind our new superfriend and her trusty sidekick Green Show Boy, aka Mark Licea, by listening in!

Also on the show, we discuss the fallout from the Horizon Realty escapade and why the Wii has stopped selling so well.

Finally, we talk about Peter Jackson's latest complaint: the fact that Hollywood has run out of original stories. OK Mr. Jackson, we'll give you District 9, but we're pretty sure both King Kong and The Lord of the Rings may have been other people's ideas.

Open source has seen a flurry of executive appointments in the past few weeks, but no open-source company can top GroundWork for the level of CEO turnover in the past two years. In 2007, Ranga Rangachari helmed GroundWork. By 2008, company co-founder Dave Lilly had replaced Rangachari.

In early 2009, GroundWork slotted Lilly into the COO role, replacing him as CEO with Peter Jackson. Jackson was recently CEO of Intraware, a company he grew to $100 million in sales and eventually sold in January 2009, and seems a competent chief to lead the company.

Even so...three years, three CEOs. Worried a bit by all this change, I reached out to Jackson to get his perspective on GroundWork's business and its open-source opportunity.

You come from a Web 2.0 background. What brought you to GroundWork?

What's nice about Web 2.0 technologies is that they're really focused on creating controlled communities. The original Web development efforts didn't do a good job regulating users on what they can and can't do. Applying that thinking to open source allows producers and users to share in safe and open areas. This includes blogs, entitlement-based distribution, shared testing and QA, questions to groups, uploading training videos, etc.

In GroundWork's case, we need to appeal to both the open-source community and to IT-reliant enterprises. This combination of Web 2.0 community building, while understanding and meeting the demands of enterprise customers, is a great chance for me to bring my experience in both areas to the company.

You took Intraware public. Do you think GroundWork and other open-source companies will have the same opportunity?

I see open source radically changing the software market in the next 24 months. Customers of traditional enterprise products and services have way overpaid for years. As companies analyze their capital expenditures more deeply, they suddenly find huge value gaps between their historical IT management purchases and open-source alternatives.

With this in mind, if the stock market recovers in a couple of years, there should be many IPOs in this sector.… Read more

Today, we rant about how J.R.R Tolkien's estate took home a whopping $62,000 from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. $62,000--that's like your dad's salary for a movie trilogy that grossed over $8 billion worldwide. Plus, we talk Fight Club reborn on Broadway, and Thriller's 25th anniversary netting some awful bonus tracks.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

In case you needed something to make Christmas truly merry (I mean, aside from this killer trailer of the next Batman movie), here's fantastic news from Middle Earth: Peter Jackson has signed up to produce the two prequel Hobbit movies.

Yes, that's right. Two.

On Dec. 18, MGM announced that it will team with Time Warner's New Line Cinema unit to make two Hobbit flicks, with the first scheduled for Christmas, 2010.… Read more