Rings Party Brings Middle-earth to Cannes

May 16 -- (CANNES, France) — Who knew Cannes was the way to Middle-earth? Certainly the thousand or so partygoers invited to New Line's Lord of the Rings celebration Sunday night did.

Transported by bus from the city to a private castle nearly a half-hour's drive away, visitors were greeted by fearsome, black-clad riders on black steeds who silently trod along a candlelit path a quarter mile up a hill to the castle. There, Saruman's winged soldiers stood guard. Nearby was hobbit Bilbo Baggins' house, imported, along with everything else, from the film's New Zealand set.

Guests were invited to crawl or crouch through the small-scale house and then visit the throne room, complete with costumed guards and a case of the most authentic-looking fake swords around. The castle pool had been transformed into a scene out of the Elf-realm of Lothlorien, complete with the Lady Galadriel's swan boat and plenty of atmospheric smoke. Long-haired elves wandered around, as did hobbits outfitted with the hairy feet described in J.R.R. Tolkien's books.

This party was a fitting climax for New Line Pictures' Cannes Film Festival hoopla. It topped off a weekend of press interviews and meetings with the theater distributors around the world who will be showing the Lord of the Rings trilogy over the next three years, starting with The Fellowship of the Ring on Dec. 19.

Many of the trilogy's stars showed up for the festivities, including Viggo Mortensen, Liv Tyler, the two English Sirs Ian — Holm and McKellen — as well as Frodo himself, Elijah Wood. Guests boogied to soul music, ate a feast that included roast pig, roast lamb, and a massive white birthday cake sparkling with hundred of candles. It was for Bilbo, of course!

The party — whose price tag was guessed by several guests to be above the $2 million mark — drew a crowd that included The Sopranos' Drea de Matteo, in Cannes as the star of the Abel Ferrara drama R-Xmas; Driven director Renny Harlin; and Miramax honcho Harvey Weinstein.