{"id":81194,"date":"2013-10-24T16:55:33","date_gmt":"2013-10-24T21:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=81194"},"modified":"2013-10-24T17:01:36","modified_gmt":"2013-10-24T22:01:36","slug":"the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey-ee-extras-chapter-1-the-journey-back-to-middle-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2013\/10\/24\/81194-the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey-ee-extras-chapter-1-the-journey-back-to-middle-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey EE Extras – Chapter 1: The Journey Back to Middle-earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition features over 4 hours of behind the scenes extras, and is exclusively on iTunes (you can download it here<\/a>). \u00a0 This article is first in a series on the Extended Edition extras and discusses the long and winding road back to Middle-earth.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"EE_1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

******************<\/p>\n

Chapter 1:\u00a0 The Journey Back to Middle-earth<\/p>\n

August 8, 1999 – Peter Jackson’s\u00a0cutting room in Wellington, New Zealand, in the early stages of\u00a0 filming The Lord of the Rings trilogy.\u00a0Peter,\u00a0reclining on a sofa, tells the editors in the room,\u00a0“This is a very complicated movie, times three, all at once.\u00a0 This is going to be the hardest thing I ever do in my life, and I will never…i’ve actually had enough, really,\u00a0of these complicated things, and my next movie is going to be really simple.\u00a0 Whatever it is, it’ll be as simple as hell.”<\/p>\n

We now know that his next movie, King Kong, was not exactly simple, however it must have felt like it compared to the 18 months it took to film The Lord of the Rings trilogy!\u00a0\u00a0 “When we made The Lord of the Rings I was absolutely sure that was going to be a once in a lifetime experience”, Peter says.<\/p>\n

\"EE_7\"<\/p>\n

Cut to February 24th, 2004:\u00a0\u00a0TheOneRing.net’s historic Oscars party, where\u00a0Peter\u00a0declares (amidst the chanting of ‘Hobbit!’ from the partygoers), “Let’s not shut down TheOneRing.net down just at this moment!”<\/p>\n

Screenwriter Phillipa Boyens\u00a0explains: “The idea of doing ‘The Hobbit’ was always there, in terms of\u00a0the fact that The\u00a0Lord of the Rings trilogy had been so successful.\u00a0\u00a0The studio was keen to do it, but there were rights issues which were quite complicated.”\u00a0\u00a0 One of the big hurdles was that Warner Brothers did not own all the rights to\u00a0The Hobbit;\u00a0 they were shared\u00a0between Warner Brothers and MGM, so that would need to be sorted out before\u00a0a film (or films) could be greenlit.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Not to mention that Peter was not interested in directing it.\u00a0\u00a0During the filming\u00a0of the LotR\u00a0trilogy, Elijah Wood asked Peter if he thought he might like to do The Hobbit someday, and Peter was quick to answer “no”.\u00a0\u00a0Peter said his idea had been that if it did get made, he, Fran Walsh, and Phillipa Boyens would write the script and produce it, and someone else would direct.<\/p>\n

\"EE_13\"<\/p>\n

An early favorite of the writers was Guillermo del Toro,\u00a0who had\u00a0directed ‘The Devil’s Backbone’, ‘Hellboy’, and ‘Blade 2’.\u00a0 When he was offered the job, Guillermo enthusiastically\u00a0said yes.\u00a0\u00a0In May 2009 he told TOR.n staffer Quickbeam, “I am\u00a0exploding with the desire to show everything!\u00a0 It’s fun, but it’s challenging, and it requires you to have your stuff together..you have to do your homework everyday.”<\/p>\n

Studios MGM and Warner Brothers would now need to work out a deal where they would share in the production and distribution of The Hobbit.\u00a0 Even before the films got a greenlight\u00a0from the studios, the writers and Weta Workshop were able to do quite a lot of work, including writing the script, production design, building armour and character maquettes.\u00a0\u00a0 It took quite a\u00a0while for MGM and Warner Brothers to work out a deal, but just as they got close to\u00a0finalizing, MGM faced some\u00a0financial issues which caused additional delays and pushed\u00a0the start date of filming\u00a0even further back.\u00a0\u00a0Guillermo had other films that he wanted to do, and had to decide if he wanted to wait another few months for a possible start date.\u00a0\u00a0In early\u00a02010, after a year and a half of pre-production, he made the decision to step down as director.\u00a0\u00a0 “I remember the meeting where he announced he had to leave”, conceptual artist John Howe recalls, “and he was very clearly heartbroken.”<\/p>\n

Peter, however, didn’t instantly step up as a replacement.\u00a0 “At the point that Guillermo left, a substantial amount of money had been spent, and a huge amount of work had been done.\u00a0 And we (the production team) talked about it and said, well do we now find somebody else who would like to make The Hobbit,\u00a0and so essentially start that journey again, or do we help the studio\u00a0in a very difficult situation and do I step in and do it?”\u00a0\u00a0The studios were hesitant to greenlight a film without a director.\u00a0 It took some time, and some persuasion from the other\u00a0producers\u00a0to convince Peter that if the films were going to get made, he would need to step back in as director.<\/p>\n

After months of legal wrangling, The Hobbit finally got a greenlight to start production.\u00a0 However,\u00a0Peter would have a lot less time to prepare for The Hobbit than he did for The Lord of the Rings.\u00a0 “On The Lord of the Rings, I had two, two and a half years to prepare three movies.\u00a0 And on The Hobbit, I had about 5 months to prepare.”<\/p>\n

The next step was to figure out what ideas from the pre-production under Guillermo del Toro\u00a0would stay, and what would need to be changed.\u00a0\u00a0It was decided that, although del Toro’s\u00a0designs would be great in a del Toro\u00a0film, it wouldn’t be right for a Peter Jackson film.\u00a0 Peter explains,”What I thought I had to do at that point was to say ‘Okay, you’re the guy that made The Lord of the Rings;\u00a0 get back into that zone, get back into that head space.'”\u00a0 Once they sorted out designs, the filmmakers were able to start casting the roles\u00a0and set a new principle filming start date of February 2011.<\/p>\n

“There was quite a long period in the years between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, and Fran and I just took the attitude of, ‘Well, if we do The Hobbit that’ll be because, you know, that is where fate has pushed us….so i’ve sort of\u00a0done the once in a lifetime twice in my lifetime, but not a third time, there won’t be a third time!”<\/p>\n

The cast was assembled and were brought down to New Zealand; Weta\u00a0was busy with set, costume, and makeup designs.\u00a0 But there was still one more hurdle left before filming started: on January 26, 2011, just a few days after the first script read through\u00a0with the cast, \u00a0Peter is rushed to the hospital with a perforated ulcer, delaying filming yet again.\u00a0\u00a0 Although he was still able to\u00a0do a little work\u00a0from his sick-bed, he would not return to the set until March 3rd.\u00a0 Principal photography finally\u00a0began on March 21st, 2011.<\/p>\n

\"hobbit2\"<\/p>\n

To be continued…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition features over 4 hours of behind the scenes extras, and is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":81248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[82,4,18,496,148,1636],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-merchandise-dvds","category-hobbit-movie","category-merchandise","category-production","category-hobbit","category-the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/EE_1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-l7A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81194"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81263,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81194\/revisions\/81263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}