Richard Armitage listens to a question during a press conference before the World Premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in Wellington, New Zealand.
Only hours before the stars walked the red carpet in front of 100,000 fans on the street of Wellington, nearly the entire cast gathered at Te Papa Museum for a pair of press conferences.
Peter Jackson and stars Richard Armitage and Martin Freeman attended both press events while most of the rest of the principal cast and screenwriter Philippa Boyens attended one event or the other.
Media was invited by Warner Bros., the studio that was handling press from around the world during the week. TheOneRing.net was included in the press invite, not the only online fan site to get the call, as our friends from herr-der-ringe were also there. MGM and New Line were also announced as presenting the press conferences.
John Callen sits with his “Team Oin” jacket on during the press conference at Te Papa Museum in Wellington, New Zealand. Each actor choose a unique approach to wardrobe, just as in the movie, showing their personality when there was little dialog to go around.
Te Papa, a world-class museum, arranged a long table for the events and switched name cards in front of native Maori art. Called a Marae, translated as “big house” but serving as the symbolic center of Maori tradition, the event started with singing and then a forehead-to-forehead welcome to the participants. With the unique and beautiful colors behind, each of the question and answer sessions lasted about 40 minutes and was moderated.
Flash photography was not allowed, although clearly TheOneRing took quite a few stills. In the back of the room rows of cameras shot video, including for TORn. We audio recorded the event as well and hope to present a transcript of it in a day or two. Meanwhile enjoy some of the best handful of photos. The participants included: Cate Blanchette, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Mark Hadlow, Stephen Hunter, Peter Hambleton William Kircher, Sylvester McCoy, Graham McTavish, Andy Serkis and Elijah Wood.
John Callen sits with his “Team Oin” jacket on during the press conference at Te Papa Museum in Wellington, New Zealand. Each actor choose a unique approach to wardrobe, just as in the movie, showing their personality when there was little dialog to go around.
Jed Brophy and William Kircher, fresh from playing Red Carpet Tours and TheOneRing.net’s combined party two nights before, speak earnestly about their experiences acting on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
Richard Armitage listens to a question during a press conference before the World Premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in Wellington, New Zealand.
Philippa Boyens (l to r) Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage and Dean O’Gormann react to a question from the media. The reporter asked Freeman if he could eat dinner with anybody, living or dead, who it would be. Martin seemed a little stunted by the question.
Martin Freeman, who plays the leading role in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, tries on his Hobbit Halo next to Peter Jackson.
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.
Discussion board member Ataahua comes through for us again with a cool online feature from the New Zealand Herald where you can see just how much The Hobbit actors have been transformed for their roles by makeup and prosthetics. Just drag the slider across each photo to see the actor transform into the character. Check it out and have fun! Read More…
If you missed them, here are 17 (count them!) fabulous character posters that provide yet another look at the principal characters. In addition to Bilbo, Gandalf and all the dwarves of the party, the posters include Galadriel and Gollum. Maybe that’s a hint of Galadriel’s importance in An Unexpected Journey. Or maybe it’s just indicative of Cate Blanchett’s star power. (more…)
Warner Bros. has revealed another great scroll-like Hobbit poster on their site. Similar to the movie poster revealed recently, the newest poster concentrates mainly on the dwarves, with a little Bilbo and Gandalf thrown in. This helps further establish personalities and, with this particular scroll, names for each of the dwarves, helping fans familiarize themselves with all thirteen prior to seeing the movie. Do you have a favorite already? More than one? Let us know: Barliman’s chat; Hobbit Movie Discussion; TORn facebook, TORn Twitter. Read more…
A new movie poster for “The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey just debuted on the official Hobbit Movie Facebook page. The new poster is all about dwarves, dwarves and more dwarves. In fact, they managed to get all thirteen of them in the poster. All of them are very much in character which is that much more encouraging that Peter Jackson and crew will be able to pull of the challenging accomplishment of distinguishing thirteen major characters (and then some) and make them unique and memorable for the audience. What do you think the poster says about each of the dwarves’ personalities? Join us in our chatroom, on our facebook page or on our Hobbit Movie discussion board and let us know!
Are you sick of new Hobbit photos yet? Of course you’re not!
So here are yet more photos from The Hobbit app. In this set, there are some amazing interior shots that show Bag End in luscious detail, as well as photos of the area around Hobbiton. So much green grass! Plus there’s a couple more portrait shots, including more Hot Dwarf action! Go check out the full gallery below! SPOILERS!
And if you haven’t already, you can grab the app here! (warning: requires itunes)
More Hobbit-y goodness for all! This time it’s superb portraits of the 13 members of the Company. I tell you, I am starting to get a feeling that James Nesbitt’s Bofur will be a bit of a scene stealer.
The only ones missing (at the moment) are Bilbo and Thorin Oakenshield.
The great news for fans is that there are no plot spoilers here (unless you count costumes). So dip right into the full gallery below!
Why should Apple users get all the fun? Here are all the new photos from the Hobbit application that was launched just today!
Lots of them are at Bag End, but a couple of surprises appear to come from much later in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. And a couple will definitely please the Hot Dwarves fans. Anyway, enough waffle, go check them out! Potential spoilers!
Peter Jackson and company swooped into Comic-Con and unleashed some footage for the ravenous fans there but now he has unleashed Vlog #8 from his Facebook page full of spoilers, Comic-Con footage, John Howe, lots of actors saying hi and a little nostalgia from the crew. If you can stand a view of stone giants, Beorn’s house, Andy Serkis jamming on a sax and an absurd amount of “Hobbit” stuff, it is a must watch. The film hasn’t been released yet and already producer Michael Pellerin and his crew of behind-the-scenes people are making us nostalgic for it! And, sure sounded like Jackson reads TheOneRing. Find it on his Facebook page or watch it below:
Our message board members were quick to pick up on this very cool scrolling montage of pictures from the upcoming Hobbit movie over at Entertainment Weekly.com. What’s cool is there are new scenes we’ve never seen before. What’s even cooler is you can scroll over the pictures to get a closer look. Check it out and let us know what details *you* pick out on the very active thread in progress on our Hobbit discussion board! Read More…
THERE AND BACK: today on our *Live* webcast TORn TUESDAY, our intrepid host Clifford “Quickbeam” Broadway has just returned from New Zealand where many magical things were witnessed ON THE ACTUAL SET OF THE HOBBIT, but secrecy abounds! Be tantalized and teased with a unique 1st person account of travels to the real Middle-earth! We also pay tribute to our fallen friend and Memorial Day remembrance for our brave heroes abroad. Come join the show via Stickam (account “theoneringnet”) using your own Skype login or via our Live Event Page with our unique Barliman’s chat embedded in the show!
