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.

Bret McKenzie is best known for being one part of “New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk-rock act”, Flight Of The Conchords. Keen-eyed Lord Of The Rings fans might also know him for his potrayal of the elf Figwit, complete with long sleek black hair – and most worryingly, no beard.

Speaking to Bret about his role as music-wrangler for The Muppets recently, we also talked to him about his return to Middle Earth for The Hobbit and putting on his pointy ears once more.

“It was in Wellington so I could pretty much walk to work. It’s still a small part — I did a couple of days earlier this year — but it was great to get my pointy ears back on. It’s in 3D, so the ears will be extra pointy. You’ll be able to touch the ears.” More..

Orlando BloomFrom odt.co.nz: One of the stars of Sir Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit was spotted in Queenstown yesterday. The Otago Daily Times understands Orlando Bloom lunched at Amisfield, near Arrowtown, before being spotted at Reading Cinemas in Queenstown. Bloom is reprising his role as Legolas, an elf, in the two-part prequel to The Lord of the Rings. Filming will be done in several places in Otago, including the Wakatipu.

As we start to close down 2011, Ringers get another new item to add to their shelves. The Legolas Greenleaf statue is shipping right now from Sideshow Collectibles. Legolas is the third statue to ship from the growing line of collectibles representing Sir Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

Legolas is the son of Thranduil, King of the Elves of Mirkwood. During the early stages of the War of the Ring he would be sent to Rivendell for The Council of Elrond where the fate of the Ring of Power would be decided. Eventually, Legolas would be chosen to represent the race of Elves as The Fellowship goes upon its journey to destroy the Ring of Power. The Elf would go on to form a great bond with the Dwarf Gimli who should be the next statue to ship from Sideshow. This representation of Legolas brings us his look from The Two Towers and more specifically during the battle Helm’s Deep.

Continue reading “Collecting The Precious – Sideshow Collectibles Legolas Statue Review”

The folks at TheOneRing.net are great miners… of information.

A few months ago, message board member Moahunter alerted us to a posting over at Johnson&Laird that listed an actor named Ray Henwood as playing the role of “Old Bellringer” in The Hobbit, a role that has subsequently been changed to “Net Mender“. To our purely speculative minds, both roles seem to have been crafted with a common intent – to have a man who sees Smaug’s firelight coming down the river from the North and alerts the people of Laketown.

As a piece of trivia, this is the same actor who played the character Erland in The Fellowship of the Ring, where he was present at the Council of Elrond as a Dale Counselor, the Advisor of Brand, son of Bain, son of Bard. More geeky information along with images can be found here.

Anyway, digging for more information on the same site brought something else of interest to our notice.

An actor named Robin Kerr has seemingly been cast in the role of Elros. We don’t suppose this is the character who, according to the books, is Elrond’s brother (who wasn’t an Elf anyway).

We feel rather that the name Elros is just being reused for a hero Elf, similar to how the name Morwen was used for a woman of Rohan in The Two Towers.

What do you think of all this? Feel free to share your thoughts on our message boards.

jan-u-wine writes: For LA Ringers (and Astin fans), Rudy will be screening at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica on Thursday, Nov. 17. Sean Astin, Jon Favreau & David Anspaugh will be on hand for a q & a! More..