Hollywood Hot Topics

If you thought The Lord of the Rings obsession had died down with the last installment of the popular trilogy, you were wrong. It’s coming back in a brand new way. The hugely successful films have been made into a musical that will premiere March 2006 in Toronto, performed by a mostly Canadian cast. It’s a three-hour, $22 million dollar production based on J.R R. Tolkien’s novels that, after 50 years since their publication, had a revival through Peter Jackson’s films over the past few years.

The musical’s director, Matthew Warchus, told the Associated Press that this newest incarnation of the stories will include “words, music, physical theater and spectacle” brought together on stage while “the audience is actually plunged into the events as they happen.”

The 20th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony was held last week, honoring U2 as one of its newest inductees.

“What’s great about the Rock Hall of Fame is it’s very humbling for very arrogant Irish rock stars,” Bono said after accepting the honor in an article on Billboard.com.

Bono also addressed the issue of declining record sales, one of the problems currently facing the music business, and pointed out “it’s time for the music business to ask some hard questions.”

The event was held at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City where the Pretenders, Percy Sledge and the O’Jays were inducted along with U2.

Another music legend isn’t doing quite as well. Billy Joel has checked himself into rehab for alcohol-related problems according to USA Today. Joel will undergo detox treatment at an unknown clinic, wishing that the matter remain a private one. The musician was in the hospital just last month for stomach-related health problems, but his publicist insisted that this recent hospital stay had nothing to do with alcohol. Along with his apparent alcohol struggles, Joel has been in several car accidents over the past few years, crashing into a tree and a house on separate occasions and sustaining some small injuries as a result.

Just as the year’s Oscar buzz was dying down, the host of the event, Chris Rock, is already back in the spotlight. Rock will have a new television show premiering next year called Everybody Hates Chris. After FOX rejected the pilot of Rock’s sitcom, UPN decided to pick it up. The premise of the show is an inside look at Rock’s life growing up during the 1980s in Brooklyn. The comedian will narrate the show, but will cast an actor to play a teenage version of himself. The character will be the oldest in a family of three boys, dealing with issues of being a black student while attending schools with a white majority.

Lisa Thompson can be reached at lisa526@temple.edu.