THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING came out swinging like Gollum for that box office brass ring on Wednesday, Dec. 17, taking in a glorious $57.6M in theaters around the globe, according to New Line, including a record-breaking domestic gross of $34.1M and $23.5M in 19 territories overseas.

Turbo Squid, the world's largest collection of royalty-free 3D assets for sale, has formed a custom 3D modeling service, allowing clients to draw from a global pool of more than 6,300 digital artists when a job is needed. The service is designed to give Turbo Squid clients another avenue for content if they cannot fulfill their needs through the Turbo Squid library of more than 80,000 3D models, meshes, textures, audio files and mo-cap data available for download.

After successfully IMAXing THE MATRIX trilogy, IMAX and Warner Bros. Pictures will release the third installment of the HARRY POTTER film series, THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN, in IMAX theaters in June 2004. The highly anticipated Alfonso Cuaron-directed feature is scheduled to open June 4 in conventional theaters. HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN will be digitally re-mastered through proprietary IMAX DMR technology.

THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, based on the popular book of the same name by C.S. Lewis, will begin production in New Zealand in early 2004, industry development minister Jim Anderton said in a statement. New Zealand-native Andrew Adamson, co-director of the Oscar-winning SHREK, will be directing the live-action film. The production will use stage space and personnel in Auckland.

Winners in the 12 competing categories at the Australian Effects and Animation Festival (AEAF) 2003 Awards were announced Dec. 9, 2003 at the Sydney Convention Center, Darling Harbor.

The winners were:

FEATURE FILM VISUAL EFFECTS
THE MATRIX RELOADED: ESC

FEATURE FILM ANIMATION
FINDING NEMO: Pixar

VFX industry veteran Jeff Ross has joined Hollywood-based visual effects shop Eden FX, in the newly created position of evp.

Ross has built an extensive career guiding, managing and overseeing the growth of numerous successful, high-end post-production companies. For the past two years, he served as evp/coo of Sunset Digital, a high definition facility specializing in feature film mastering, digital restoration, linear and non-linear editing and DVD compression and authoring.

SEABISCUIT, writer/director Gary Ross' acclaimed screen adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand's revered bestseller about the legendary race horse and his place in American lore, comes to DVD Dec. 16, 2003 (Universal Home Entertainment, $26.98) with several noteworthy extras: commentary from Ross and director Steven Soderbergh, production notes, three featurettes ("Racing Through History," "Bringing the Legend to Life" and "Anatomy of a Movie Moment: From Script to Screen") and co-star Jeff Bridge's on-set photographs.

The Independent Games Festival has announced the finalists in the sixth annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) Competition, which will exhibit their games the Game Developers Conference March 24-26, 2004 in San Jose, California. Selected by a panel of game industry professionals, game development teams will compete for more than $40,000 in cash prizes, double the payout from previous years.

The 10 games selected for the "Open" category are (in alphabetical order):
ACMI by Selectparks (Richmond, Victoria, Australia)

Kevin Mullican has been named cto for iO Film, a technologically advanced, full-service digital film finishing facility specializing in film and video projects from every sector of the entertainment industry.

Billed as a Victorian-era X-MEN, THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, led by Sean Connery and a cast of legendary monsters, arrives on DVD on Dec. 16, 2003 (Fox Home Entertainment, $27.98).