NEW ZEALAND - Christopher Tolkien passed yesterday, the grey-rain curtain turning to silver glass and being rolled back, allowing him to behold white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.

After his passing, Peter Jackson unveiled a new, 578-film series covering the events of The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien's history of Middle-earth edited and published by Christopher.

"At first I thought maybe we'd do a 400-film series, but you absolutely cannot tell this story in fewer than 500 movies," Jackson said during a press conference announcing The Silmarillion. "Tolkien fans deserve the story told in its entirety, even if it means we cover about 2/3 of a page in each movie."

The first film, tentatively titled The Silmarillion: Part 1 of 578, will cover the first sentence of the book's foreword: "The Silmarillion, now published four years after the death of its author, is an account of the Elder Days, or the First Age of the World." Lest some think the movie will be too dull and stuffy, Jackson assured moviegoers there will be plenty of wizards lobbing pinecone grenades and wacky barrel rides down rivers. Orlando Bloom and that girl from Lost will also be there for some reason.

Sources in the afterlife have confirmed that J.R.R. Tolkien is currently grilling his son on just what the heck actually happened in The Silmarillion.