Cliff ‘Quickbeam’ Broadway and his gang at slaveboyfilms.com were at Meltdown Comics recently and caught up with Guillermo del Toro to talk THE HOBBIT!!
TheOneRing.net catches up with Guillermo Del Toro at Meltdown Comics in Hollywood. We touch on all topics Hobbit – voice of Smaug, the movie split, and even TORn anniversary!
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Check out The Noldor Blog, written by a Wellington-based LOTR tour operator who hears all sorts of interesting rumours. He can expand on Red Carpet Tours’ discovery that Viggo had been in New Zealand on film work recently. If you read down to here you’ll see a spy report suggesting Viggo will be in both Hobbit movies and reprise his role as a Dunedain protecting the Shire.
“The Hobbit,” has to be cast but that just leaves more time for fans to speculate, guess and suggest regarding the casting of the two-films planned by producer Peter Jackson and director Guillermo del Toro.
There are a few givens. According to the decision makers, as many of the main characters that appear in both Jackson’s LOTR trilogy and GDT’s Hobbit films will be cast using existing actors from those roles as possible. And while media outlets trying to create news about the film have asked any actor they can find if they will appear, the list of sure crossovers are relatively small.
Ian Holm, approaching 80 years old, has stated that he is too old to play Bilbo because of the physical demands of the role and the required relocation to New Zealand. So the search for the main character is on. Most readers will be familiar with characters like Gandalf that belong to actors such as Ian McKellen so they will not be rehashed here because there is no debate about who will fill the role.
Sean Astin told SCI FI Wire that he’d be thrilled to reprise his Lord of the Rings film trilogy role as Sam Gamgee in the upcoming big-screen adaptations of The Hobbit. However, because the Rings’ beloved quartet of Hobbits don’t actually appear in The Hobbit, Astin doubts that he’ll be asked to appear in the films. Astin’s comments run counter to those of his Rings co-star Dominic Monaghan, who told MTV News in January that he believes that he, Astin, Billy Boyd and Elijah Wood will play some role in the two Hobbit features. The films will be produced by Rings mastermind Peter Jackson and directed by Guillermo del Toro. SCI FI Wire spoke to Astin today, while he was promoting ION Television’s upcoming miniseries The Color of Magic. Following are edited excerpts from that exclusive interview, in which he also talked about the 10th anniversary of filming The Lord of the Rings and his other upcoming genre projects. Astin up for Hobbit if Hobbit up for him
From Entertainment Weekly: When the news came down yesterday that a heretofore unpublished book by J.R.R. Tolkien will be hitting bookstores in May, I was a little surprised that I, an avowed Tolkien dilettante, felt a genuine twinge of excitement. Although I have never read Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, I did love me Peter Jackson’s LOTR moving pictures something fierce, and I’m quite twitterpated to see what director Guillermo Del Toro and exec producer Jackson have cooking for The Hobbit. Maybe this new Tolkien story — which the good professor reportedly wrote before spinning his tales of furry-footed Hobbits and ring-seeking dark lords — would prove just as richly filled with fodder for a sweeping fantasy epic that wins oodles of Oscars. EW.com
Message board member diedye found this IGN interview in which Christopher Lee discusses his role as a Bond baddie in “Man with the Golden Gun,” and speculates about reprising the role of Saruman in the upcoming Hobbit films. This part, in particular, sounds promising:
“IGN: Would you be willing to reprise the role? Lee: In the spirit very much so. But I’ve reached an age now [86] where going to New Zealand again would be a very considerable effort. It would not be easy because it’s an exhausting journey. Even with a break I’m not sure I could do it. IGN: If they could film your part in London, would you be interested? Lee: Oh yes, of course. I’d be delighted.”