Peter Jackson's announcement that he would begin filming back to back the three volumes of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic Lord of the Rings in New Zealand this fall started a furor that may well put the Star Wars stir to shame.
"The fan base has been there since the Sixties or whenever the books were published for the first time," said the 21-year-old film student who prefers to be called Xoanon (Zo-AN-on). "You have two or three generations of people who love the books."
He's not surprised, then, by the excitement the movies are causing. What does amaze him is the response he and his three partners have been getting to their LOTR website, The One Ring. It's one of two sites by that name, distinguished from its "competition" by the URL http://www.theonering.net. And it is a "net," an eclectic collaboration that covers everything Tolkien and Lord of the Rings.
Xoanon and his New Zealand-based friend, Tehanu, first decided to follow the progress of the newly-announced movies back in March of this year. At first, their only intention was to show people where the films were to be made. Tehanu agreed to take photos of the various locations that were most likely to be turned into Middle Earth. Xoanon posted them on his home site, which was at that time hosted by a free service, "to show people what New Zealand looks like." For the heck of it, he contacted Harry Knowles of the Ain't-It-Cool News entertainment website to tell him about the project.
Harry responded by displaying one of their photos along with a link to the page. He urged people to drop by and have a look. They did - in droves.
"It just sort of exploded," Xoanon said. "We get 75,000 to 90,000 hits a day."
Just a tad earlier this year, web designer Ted Tschopp and his friend Jonathan had decided to set up a site dedicated to both the LOTR movies and Tolkien's books. Jon had participated in the countdown to Episode I and thought it would be great to see if they could start something similar for Jackson's films. The result was the other The One Ring at http://www.theonering.com , which receives "1,000 unique visits a day."
"I've actually been pleasantly surprised," Ted said. "I didn't think there were as many dedicated people as there are."
