Thanks sumi. Those are all traditional soundtrack albums - and not scores though I think. Maybe Titanic is a score.

Basically I am in a music nerd argument with somone who thinks the soundtracks are only for the Tolkien freaks and aren't big with the general public. I know he's wrong and I'm trying to find proof.

ROTK went as high as No. 36 on the Billboard chart - but I want a more solid basis for telling him he's a dumbass.

This goes double if your name is Leonardo DiCaprio.

t recasting all Leonardo's subsequent movies with a flamey eyeball

t notes little change to giant sucking sound

Huh. Turns out LOTR is just like a cross between Catch Me if You Can and Gangs of New York.

Isildur: "Who is this under moi knoife?"

Narrator: "In the upcoming feature, the part of the Witch-King of Angmar will be played by Tom Hanks."

Angmar would make a lovely girl's name.

Except for how it wouldn't.

Angmar would make a lovely girl's name.

Except for how it wouldn't.

Wait for my upcoming book on relationship advice, "Witch-Kings Are From Angmar, Witch-Queens Are From New Orleans".

Do you think that sales are secret? Because you might try getting in touch with Reprise -- they would certainly have that information.

Okay I found this:

Since its release in late November, "The Lord of the Rings: The Return Of The King" has racked up sales in excess of 300,000 units, joining its bestselling predecessors "The Fellowship Of The Ring" (2001) and "The Two Towers" (2002), which have sold over 3 million units worldwide. Additionally, "The Two Towers" soundtrack has been nominated for a Grammy as Best Original Score.

here

500,000 units = 1 gold record
1,000,000 units = 1 platinum record

Would that help your friend understand?

PJ is on E! News live today (about the DGA Award).

So, um, there really is an "Atlantis" in the LotR books?

Cause, see, since I haven't read them, I trust you folks for my information. So....Atlantis? Like the Donovan song?

A co-worker just e-mailed me RotK EE scenes:

Director Peter Jackson told Entertainment Weekly magazine that some of the hour's worth of extra footage cut from the theatrical release of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King could find its way into the upcoming DVD edition.

"I'm going to work on an extended DVD version, though I don't think all of that will make it in, because the pacing would be really weird," Jackson told the magazine. "But there's some good stuff that's not in the book."

Among the excised scenes: a humorous bit between Gimli (John Rhys- Davies) and Legolas (Orlando Bloom) having a drinking competition. "I really quite liked [it]," Jackson said. "But we felt [it was too comedic] at a point when we wanted to set up the tension of the story. And there's a sequence of Sam [Sean Astin] and Frodo [Elijah Wood] disguised as orcs, where they end up in the orc army for a while."

The purists should skip highlighting the spoiler font.

What Nutty is calling Atlantis is, in the backstory of the novels, the land of Numenor, which was located in the middle of the ocean, between Middle-Earth and Valinor.

So, basically Atlantis, complete with associations of lost golden age, and nasty fate (i.e., overthrown and drowned).