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Gandalf Should Be A Woman In New Lord Of The Rings TV Show, Actress Says
An actress from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movie franchise has spoken up to say she believes a woman should play a female Gandalf in the new Lord of the Rings TV show.
Robyn Malcolm, who played the small part of Morwen in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, told Stuff.nz that it’s time for women to get more front and center.
“Those old legends, those old mystical stories, they’re so based within a patriarchal landscape,” Malcolm said. “Why not look at the magic of a matrilineal world where the magical powerhouses are women?”
Ian McKellan played Gandalf in Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies.
Malcolm said she would like to see New Zealand-based actresses Rena Owen or Rachel House play Gandalf in Amazon’s Lord of the Rings TV show. She also named people like Alfre Woodard as among her top personal choices for the role. If the producers want to sign someone with more name recognition, Malcolm said actresses like Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, or Eileen Atkins should be considered.
Malcolm went on to say that because Lord of the Rings is based in fantasy, she doesn’t worry about “Tolkien purists” who might not agree with making Gandalf a woman.
“We’ve had female Hamlets,” she said. “Why not?”
The Lord of the Rings TV show takes place during the Second Age, but there is no word on any of the characters who might appear in it or by what means the show will handle time.
There is no word yet on when the Lord of the Rings show will premiere, but we’re beginning to find out who will star in it. Black Mirror actor Will Poulter and Markella Kavenagh are in talks to play the lead roles, according to reports.
Behind the camera, Amazon has assembled an all-star team of writers and producers. The writers room for the untitled Lord of the Rings show includes Gennifer Hutchinson (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul), Helen Shang (Hannibal), Justin Dohle (Stranger Things), Bryan Cogman (Game of Thrones), and Stephany Folsom (Toy Story 4).
J.A. Bayona, the director of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, is directing episodes one and two of the Lord of the Rings show.
Kate Hawley is the costume designer; she previously worked on Edge of Tomorrow and Suicide Squad. Rick Heinrichs, who won an Oscar for Sleepy Hollow and also worked on The Last Jedi, is the production designer; Jason Smith, who worked on The Revenant, Super 8, and The Avengers is the visual effects supervisor. Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey is also working on the new Amazon show, as is Lord of the Rings movie trilogy illustrator and concept artist John Howe.
The Amazon show also has numerous producers, including people who have worked on Westworld, Boardwalk Empire, 10 Cloverfield Lane, and The Departed.
In other news, a new Lord of the Rings video game focused on Gollum is in development at Daedalic Entertainment, while a AAA online Lord of the Rings game is also on the way.
Cyberpunk 2077 Is Coming To PAX Aus
One of 2020’s most anticipated games, Cyberpunk 2077, will be shown publicly for the first time in Australia at PAX Australia later this month in Melbourne.
Attendees can watch live presentations of the much-anticipated role-playing game each day of the show–October 11, 12, and 13. The presentations run for 45 minutes each. The first two presentations take place in the Main Theatre, while the third is being held at GameSpot’s own theatre on Sunday, October 13 at 12:30 PM local time.
Here is the schedule of presentations for Cyberpunk 2077 at PAX Aus:
- Friday, October 11 — 1 PM | Main Theatre
- Saturday, October 12 — 3 PM | Main Theatre
- Sunday, October 13 — 12:30 PM | GameSpot Theatre
In addition to the live presentations, Cyberpunk 2077 will have a place at the Xbox booth featuring more video presentations along with a cosplay competition. Fans can dress up in their favorite Cyberpunk cosplay for a shot at winning a $5000 prize.
Cyberpunk 2077 posters and t-shirts will also be available at the Xbox booth, along with signing opportunities.
PAX Aus 2019 runs October 11-13 in Melbourne, Victoria. For lots more on the show, and GameSpot’s plans specifically, check out this rundown of all the GameSpot Theatre panels.
As for Cyberpunk 2077, the next game from the creators of The Witcher series launches in April 2020 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
Destiny 2 Servers Will Be Offline On October 3; Here’s Exactly When And For How Long
Destiny 2 will be offline on October 3 as developer Bungie performs maintenance on the multiplayer game’s servers. The downtime will commence at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET / 3 PM GMT, and during this time the game will be unplayable, while some functionality on Destiny’s connected experiences across web, mobile, and third-party apps may be interrupted.
The downtime is expected to run for 30 minutes, wrapping up at 8:30 AM PT / 11:30 AM ET / 3:30 PM GMT. While the servers are expected to be back online at that time, players might experience a server queue. This is nothing out of the ordinary, as many online games implement server queues at various times to help ease the strain of server load.
Destiny 2’s big new expansion, Shadowkeep, and the New Light free-to-play version of the game, released on October 1. The rollout wasn’t entirely smooth, as Bungie was forced to bring down the game’s servers for several hours to perform “emergency maintenance.”
Despite the hiccups, Destiny 2 was able to reach more than 200,000 peak concurrent players on launch day. The game continues to be extremely popular. Steam’s public statistics page shows the game reached 226,000 concurrent players on October 2, making it one of the most popular games on the whole of Steam.
For lots more on Destiny 2, check out GameSpot’s recent stories below:
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Matrix 4 Reportedly to Feature Young Neo and Morpheus
Warner Bros. is reportedly looking for two actors to portray younger versions of Neo and Morpheus in the next instalment of the iconic sci-fi series, The Matrix.
Variety reporter Justin Kroll, who originally broke the news about Matrix 4, recently appeared as a guest on an episode of Robbie Fox’s My Mom’s Basement podcast, in which he stated that casting announcements for these characters could be coming in the next couple of weeks.
“Now I think within the next week or two we’ll have Young Morpheus and Young Neo news coming up,” he shared. “Because I know Lana’s meeting with people quite aggressively because they want to shoot that in February.”
The Bloodborne Community Is Holding Its Own Halloween Event
The Bloodborne community is organising a month-long Halloween event where players must dress in costume, head to Yharnam, and invade as much as possible.
The unofficial “Official Return to Yharnam” party runs from midnight on October 5 to November 5, and the rules are taking shape based on which suggestions get upvoted the most on the Bloodborne subreddit.
So far the rules include: Create a new character, dress from a list of costumes (like the Grim Reaper – made from a crow hunter outfit with the foreigner hood and burial blade), and invade as often as you’re able.
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