Memoirs of a Roadie

The Battle of Evermore

Posted on 30th April 2009

Now that The Lord Of The Rings trilogy has finally made it to the big screen in Hollywood style, production is in progress to bring The Hobbit to the big screen for 2011. But that's a long way away for many fans.

It was far too long to wait for one fan, who decided it would be a great idea to do a fan-film, based on the Tolkien's Middle Earth. The writer/director Chris Bouchard enlisted Tolkien fans on the internet, to help with the casting and the pre- and post-production. The film has cost around £3,000 to make, and is a testiment to what can be achieved on a low budget. The film is only 40mins long, but looks to be every bit as enjoyable as the Hollywood counterparts. The film, The Hunt For Gollum, was inspired from Tolkien's writings, adapting the appendices from The Lord Of The Rings books, and fits inbetween The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings stories.

The film is to have its first official screening at the Sci-Fi-London film festival on Sunday 3rd May 2009, but thankfully everyone will be able to see it. As The Hunt For Gollum was made as a non-profit venture, part of the goals of the project was to release the film for free. After the official screening on Sunday, the film will be available online for download from the official website, for everyone to watch at their leisure.

In some ways it's a pity that they aren't selling this as a DVD/Blu-Ray release to help fund possible future fan-films, but I suspect that this may cause problems with licensing from the Tolkien Estate, etc. As the sites disclaimer states "[The Hunt For Gollum] is in no way affiliated with, or sponsored or approved, by Tolkien Enterprises, the heirs or estate of J.R.R. Tolkien, Peter Jackson, New Line Cinema, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. or any of their repective affiliates or licensees." As such getting appropriate approval for a DVD/Blu-Ray release would likely be traumatic to say the least.

Having watched the trailers I'm looking forward to seeing the final film, as it looks to be every bit as magnificent as the big budget films. I also hope that Chris Bouchard gets the chance to work of a big budget feature telling another tale from Tolkien's Middle Earth, as there are plenty more stories that I'm sure other fans would love to see come to life :)