In a
blog post last month, before
The Hobbit officially landed a director,
Lord of the Rings veteran Sir
Ian McKellen was more certain he would reprise his role as Gandalf than he was of his former castmates' sexualities. He was even surer in
a recent interview with
Empire magazine, in which the 68-year-old confirmed he was coming back for filmmaker
Guillermo del Toro. "Yes, it's true," McKellen said. "I spoke to Guillermo in the very room that Peter Jackson offered me the part and he confirmed that I would be reprising the role. Obviously, it's not a part that you turn down, I loved playing Gandalf." And if McKellen's happy, then we're happy — especially when it means we don't have to further wrack our tired, beaten brains
conjuring a suitable replacement. Thank God for small favors. [
Reuters]
no sir
Even though the Warner Bros. ax has
yet to fall around
New Line headquarters and the Tolkien family still wants its cash for
The Lord of the Rings saga, Sir
Ian McKellen took to his blog (We know! We're as stunned as you are) Wednesday to confirm he's "keeping [his] diary open for 2009" to reprise his role as Gandalf in
The Hobbit. But that's only the half of McKellen's big gay update, which also includes hot nose-tweaking action and yawning confirmations of his
LOTR co-stars' heterosexuality:
I did feel the need to tweak (New Line co-founder Michael Lynne's) nose once, when he seemed to be trying to diddle the cast of LOTR out of their well-earned share of the profits. It was at a party in Berlin after the opening of The Return of the King. I said "That's for all the trouble you've been causing!" I don't know who was more surprised: Michael, that I had taken his nose in my finger and thumb and twisted it gently, or me for having dared do it! At least one of us enjoyed it.
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x-men
The latest advancement in computer generated effects—a convincing reversal of the human aging process—is on display (spoiler alert) in an early scene of
X-Men: The Last Stand, in which
Ian McKellen's Magneto and Patrick Stewart's Prof. Xavier are rendered 20 years younger for a flashback. As McKellen raved to reporters in Cannes about the technique ("It's as brilliantly done as airbrushing in a magazine. You cannot tell the difference,"), director
Brett Ratner fretted about how the powerful technology could
possibly change showbiz forever:
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davinci
Director
Ron Howard has been
soft-shoeing around the growing uproar over his controversial new movie,
The Da Vinci Code. (We hear it has something to do with the fact that it's just a thinly veiled retread of
What's Love Got To Do With It?, with Jesus recast in the Ike Turner role.) So leave it to star
Ian McKellen to dismiss Matt Lauer's questions of whether or not the movie requires a disclaimer by insisting Christianity's shoddy source material needs a disclaimer instead. From
Us Weekly's blog:
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Defamer
