Elessar sends along a curious tweet from artists/illusionist Derren Brown, not 2 hours ago he tweeted the following:

@DerrenBrown Off to watch some Ian Holm and Christopher Lee being filmed for The Hobbit. HOW EXCITING!

The tweet gives us a little more info on the apparent ‘UK shoot’ taking place sometime soon (maybe even today). Along with news that Elijah Wood is heading to the UK soon, and of course word that Christopher Lee wants to be involved in The Hobbit, save for traveling to New Zealand. No official word can be gleamed from the production (trust me, I tried), let us hope we learn more soon!

Today, Turbine has released new concept art from The Lord of the Rings Online: Rise of Isengard, the upcoming expansion to the award-winning MMO. The new concept art piece depicts Draigoch, one of the most powerful creatures in Middle-earth, and the boss in the new 24-player raid coming with Rise of Isengard, which launches on September 27th. Continue reading “LOTRO: Rise of Isengard Expansion – New Concept Art”

Today’s much-anticipated “first look” at two more Dwarves from The Hobbit come to us courtesy of TIME. And it is indeed high time we met Ken Stott as Balin and Graham McTavish as Dwalin.

Here follows the accompanying description of these Dwarves:

Dwarf Lords in their own right, Balin and Dwalin are close relatives of Thorin. Beyond this, these brothers are two of his most loyal and trusted friends.

An old warrior, Balin has lived through hard times and fought many battles, yet he harbors doubts about the wisdom of the Quest to retake the Lonely Mountain.

Dwalin has no such forebodings – his belief in Thorin’s leadership is unshakeable. A powerful and bruising fighter, with a natural tendency to distrust anyone who is not a Dwarf, particularly anyone who might be an Elf, Dwalin is not someone to cross lightly.

What do you think of these Dwarves? Discuss on our message boards.

The awesome folks at Weta have a brand new The Lord of the Rings collectible for us today! Gandalf the Grey is going to be thenext item coming from Weta in a line of statues of characters from The Lord of the Rings. As many of you know the first statue done in this line by Weta was the Gollum statue which had two versions. One with the Weta Cave logo can only be bought at the Weta Cave in New Zealand and Gandalf will be the same here. However, there is a second version for those of us not able to make the trip to the Weta Cave and purchase the version with the logo on it.

Gandalf the Grey will come with a price tag of $69 US or $99 NZ and will be like Gollum an open edition size. That does not mean he will be around forever and with a piece that has such an amazing likeness to Sir Ian McKellen I implore my fellow Ringers to get this piece before its gone. Also, Gandalf the Grey will be making an appearance at Comic-Con starting next week along with yet another surprise from Middle-earth! [Order Today]

Of late there seems to be no let up to the slew of Hobbit-related news… and we’re not complaining.

Dwarf revelations aside, today brings a very interesting tweet by Ryan Gage, cast originally in the role of Drogo Baggins, the father of Frodo Baggins (played, of course, by Elijah Wood).

Had a costume fitting today and met Elijah Wood for the first time. What a really nice guy!

Early this May, Peter Jackson announced via Facebook that Ryan Gage would be playing the Master of Laketown’s conniving civil servant, Alfrid.

Thanks to TORn spy Patrick A. for the tip.

UPDATE: It seems Ryan Gage is in the UK, and upon reading this post, a reliable source has written in to inform us that the production will probably be filming with Sir Christopher Lee in the UK during the production “break”. How great is that!?