Welcome, welcome to the fourth set report from the set of The Hobbit and the very first from a brand spankin’ new location! We started in Matamata (Hobbiton) and the plan was to work our way down the North Island of New Zealand, zig-zagging south until we hit Wellington again where the 450 strong main unit would board planes and ferries bound for the South Island and the bulk of location photography. Upon departing Hobbiton I made my way to a small town called Te Kuiti. This lovely little farm town is famous for being home to (Colin Meads), one of the most revered All Blacks of all time. The dude is so famous that my place was on Meads St. More..
Category: Hobbit Cast News
Bret McKenzie, half of the New Zealand musical comedy duo, Flight of the Conchords, says his character Lindir in The Hobbit is looking pretty good but doesn’t sing, although he is holding out hope for doing the theme song with Anne Lennox. He told Empire Mazine:
I look much more like a girl in The Hobbit. I look like a hot girl.
The name Figwit of course, is believed to have originated right here at TheOneRing.net when sharp eyed fans noticed him at the film version of The Council of Elrond and asked, “Frodo Is Great Who Is That?” Whatever the source, the character created such an internet stir that it is rumored to have caused Peter Jackson to give him a line with Arwen in the Return of the King film in a pick-up shot.
McKenzie is his usual entertaining self and you can read the whole article and catch McKenzie in his LOTR glory atEmpire Magazine.
Elijah Wood has good reason to praise 3D, seeing as his old pal Peter Jackson has taken the stereoscopic route in his The Hobbit films. On the publicity circuit for Happy Feet Two, we asked Wood what he’d make of the mooted 3D conversion for the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.
“I think it would be cool to see. There’s talk of releasing a dimensionalised trilogy eventually. I’m okay with doing post-process 3D, as long as someone takes the time.
He also had this to say about the oft-mentioned future release of the LOTR films to home audiences:
I think there will be a DVD edition in which there are deleted scenes. There are deleted scenes, I don’t know how many there are, it’s been a long time. A lot made it back into the cuts for those extended versions, but there are some scenes that never made it. There are also hours… there has to be at least a couple of hours of blooper reel stuff, because we were having a blast.
You can read the entire article at Den of Geek.
Nobody can be shocked or even surprised but some fans were still holding out hope that Viggo Moretensen‘s Aragorn character would return in some form or fashion for the two part presentation of Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit.
In an interview with Movies.com, the actor addressed the question directly and says that while he was once asked if he was willing to be involved, nothing has moved forward at this point. That may not be official, but its about as confirmed as information gets.
“I’m not in it unless it there is some last-minute plan they have, but I thought I would have heard of it by now.”
During the Middle-earth portion of the interview he mentioned the “bridge film” that was once part of the two-movie plan for The Hobbit but was later abandoned when the writing team of Jackson, Fran Walsh, Phillipa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro wrote the episodic children’s book into a two part movie. The mysterious bridge film was dropped. Moretensen also spoke of his third film with director David Cronenberg, titled A Dangerous Method, where the actor portrays Sigmund Freud.
The full article is available right here.
Movies.com features a Hobbit Countdown feature every other week written by our own staffer Larry D. Curtis. In the latest writing he speculates on what might be included in the coming Hobbit teaser and he looks back a decade ago when fans rocked the internet and went to see film Thirteen Days just to catch the first glimpse of Middle-earth. We included the LOTR tease below but here is a hint of what one writer speculates will be in the clip rumored to be with the new Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows December 16th. Despite inquiries no official confirmation has been issued. Variety broke the story on Twitter when Jeff Sneider tweeted, “Expect to see THE DARK KNIGHT RISES trailer in front of SHERLOCK HOLMES 2… And MAYBE even a HOBBIT teaser,”
Take that “MAYBE” as you will.
Below is a block of text from the Movies.com speculative article about the hoped for tease. You can read the whole thing right here. And, if you want to see TheOneRing.net archives about LOTR trailers, we have that too.
Plan on something about a ring to be sure. Andy Serkis’ Gollum will be back to give less-fervent fans a reminder of what the connective tissue between LOTR and the Hobbit is. Martin Freeman’s earnest face will surely get the most screen time as the title character but expect the beloved Ian McKellen as Gandalf to be close behind in terms of time. With location shooting scheduled to turn to studio work early next year and last until June, it is clear that large portions of the adaptation have yet to go before cameras.
Finally, we included the original teaser from a decade ago. Did you see it first at theaters or on the web?
Benedict Cumberbatch will not only provide the voice of the dragon Smaug The Magnificent, he will perform the role using the motion capture technology pioneered by Andy Serkis and Weta Digital, according to the actor himself.
The design of the most iconic villain in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, and indeed probably the greatest literary great worm of the 20th Century, remains a secret and a key ingredient of Peter Jackson’s two part movie adaptation due in December 2012 and December 2013. The actor, the title character acting opposite Martin Freeman in the BBC’s Sherlock, revealed to Collider during a press junket that he hasn’t done his Hobbit stint yet and that he will not only provide the voice for the creature but perform him as well. You can see the video or read the interview right here.