The Hobbit Bag End Door Originally, Peter Jackson intended his adaptation of The Hobbit to be a two-film effort — a duology.

We’ll never know for certain how it would have turned out, but in this feature TORn writer Captain Salt brings together the known facts to give us some idea of just how it might have shaped up.

Continue reading “How would have Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit looked as a duology?”

If you have a Tolkien/Middle-earth inspired poem you’d like to share, then send it to poetry@theonering.net. One poem per person may be submitted each month. Please make sure to proofread your work before sending it in. TheOneRing.net is not responsible for poems posting with spelling or grammatical errors.

Bolg, son of Azog
The original, discarded, design for Bolg, son of Azog.
Undoubtedly the tale of the casting (and re-casting) of Azog and Bolg has been one of the most complicated of The Hobbit. Here, TORn staffer Arandir documents how the parts and actors got shuffled around with poor old Conan Stevens eventually losing out in the game of musical chairs. Continue reading “Azog, Bolg … and Yazneg: The trio’s tangled design history”

If you have a Tolkien/Middle-earth inspired poem you’d like to share, then send it to poetry@theonering.net. One poem per person may be submitted each month. Please make sure to proofread your work before sending it in. TheOneRing.net is not responsible for poems posting with spelling or grammatical errors.

Courtesy of Warner Bros Belgium, here is an amazing 13-minute look into The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. It features behind-the-scenes footage, interviews with Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage and many, many other key cast and crew members where they discuss the inspiration for, and direction of, the story the first film reveals. Plus there’s plenty of new, previously unseen (at least by me!) sneak previews of what you’ll see on the big screen! So I guess I’ll add: spoilers! Continue reading “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – 13-minute TV special!”

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. Continue reading “Seventeen Hobbit character posters you’ll absolutely love”

Several of our message board members have written in with the news that acting agency Kathryn Rawlings & Associates has listed actor John Rawls as playing Azog in The Hobbit.

While there hasn’t been any announcement from the production concerning this bit of casting, we might take it as “official” given that it isn’t at all unusual for bad guys to get shuffled around in productions of this magnitude.

For some geeky information concerning Azog, who Tolkien describes as “a great Orc with a huge iron-clad head, and yet agile and strong”, visit TORn’s “Azog” Character Page, maintained by our very own TORn staffers.