Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report will present four nights of Hobbit-themed programming (Dec. 3 to Dec. 6), pegged to the Dec. 14 release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, EW has learned. Guests will include stars Ian McKellan (Dec. 3), Martin Freeman (Dec. 4) and Andy Serkis (Dec. 6), along with director Peter Jackson (Dec. 5). Said Colbert in a statement: “Elen sila lumennomentielvo*… I mean that sincerely.” For those of you who aren’t quite fluent in Elvish, that means, “a star shines on the hour of our meeting.” Read more…

Warner Bros. officially released The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey TV spot #8 today. For those who have seen all of the other TV spots and/or the movie trailers, the 32 second spot doesn’t present anything new, but who’s going to pass up watching 32 more seconds of Hobbit-goodness? Speaking of new footage, however, discussion board members who watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special on ABC in the states last night are reporting that they got a glimpse of (Highlight for spoiler) Smaug’s tail hurling what looked to be a fireball towards what looked to be Dale in a TV spot run during that show. So, keep your eyes peeled, and in the mean time, enjoy the latest TV spot!

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced ten films that have made the shortlist for the Visual Effects award for 2012. Naturally The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is among them.

On January 3, members of the Academy’s Visual Effects branch will view 10-minute excerpts from all the films and narrow them down to the final five nominees. The nominations for the 2012 Academy Awards will be announced on January 10.

The Oscars ceremony itself is scheduled for February 24. With luck, those who attend the newly announced event, “The One Expected Party,” will be able to celebrate The Hobbit‘s win in that and other categories!

 

With the help of a group of Dwarves and New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Keys, the Green Dragon officially opened for business Thursday. Located on the Hobbiton Movie Set near small-town Matamata, New Zealand, visitors can now have some ale as part of their visiting to the fully immersive movie immersion.

Press from around the globe were on hand for a full day showcase of what the site has to offer as they dispersed from the World Premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in Wellington, New Zealand the previous day.

Keys cut the chains on the door as the Alexander family, who owns the sheep farm the set is built on, welcomed him and the new addition to the set tour with the help of the actors who played dwarves in the latest Middle-earth film. Dean O’Gorman, Aiden Turner, Adam Brown, James Nesbit, John Callen, Stephen Hunter, Jed Brophy, Mark Hadlow, William Kircher, Peter Hambleton and Graham McTavish were all on hand for photos at the door and media interviews around the Hobbiton setting. Royd Tolkien was also in attendance along with key figures from the farm and New Zealand tourism.

Visitors were then treated to New Zealand’s finest wines, tasty snacks and cheeses and of course, ale. Several of the dwarves wore matching rings and revealed that just as the original Fellowship of actors in the LOTR movies all were tattooed together, this group, including lead Martin Freeman all share these specially crafted rings.

Hadlow summed it up, calling the rings a symbol of the actor’s brotherhood.

Please enjoy a few pictures from the event and from the Red Carpet the previous day.

Note: Correspondent Larry D. Curtis is in New Zealand but is having computer failures. Expect much more content in the days to come.

Hot off the heels of the exciting festivities in Wellington, we are happy to open the official party subsite for ‘The One Expected Party!’ This site will be your one stop location for all of the fine details about this black-tie gala hosted by TheOneRing.net on Oscar Night 2013. To say the night will be special for every Tolkien fan is a bit of an understatement. Our planning team are working overtime to make this the most memorable event TheOneRing.net has ever hosted! Entertainment for the night includes Billy Boyd’s band Beecake, Emerald Rose and Charles Ross of ‘The One Man Lord of the Rings!’  To coincide with the launch of the subsite, we are excited to announce that invitations to the party are now being sent to email inboxes around the world. The first invitations are being sent to those fans who filled our our Oscar Party survey last year. So if you gave us your feedback, look for an email today! Tickets will then be offered to our registered forum members and members of The Fellowship. If there are tickets left, we will open them to the general public. Check out the official party subsite for more details and hope you can join us for this amazing evening! [Party Subsite]


Ever wondered how to make acorns edible? Join Kili as she explains how to process this abundant nut, and learn just what Tolkien meant when he said Bilbo was so hungry that he could have eaten acorns… NOTE: I used acorns from California Live Oak, which are very bitter. If you have access to White Oak acorns, they’re much less bitter!  [Happy Hobbit: Acorns – Episode 06]