Peter Jackson officially directing The Hobbit films

Yeah, great news. It's "his" world in a way. I think Del Toro could have done a fairly good job, but i couldn't really see anyone else other than Jackson doing it.

The 2nd film will be interesting - if it's a new story, will we see the return of Aragorn & co ?

Or will they actually split the Hobbit properly and just pad out the 2nd part with new stuff ?

I won't watch it in 3D though, out of protest :)

Makes you wonder if 3D is a concession just to get the project properly underway ?

I imagine they'll re-master the original trilogy in 3D at some point ..
 
Finally, the news I've been waiting for for 5 years.

Jackson directing is the right way to go, always was. Del Torro would have made a great film but the Hobbit needed to look and feel like LotR IMO.

I'm not a fan of 3D but if anyone can do it well, it's PJ, Weta etc...What I hope they don't do is sacrifice their previous commitment to practical effects for the sake of 3D. There's also the small issue that PJ's miniatures studio was burned down last week.

From what I understand they ditched the idea of doing The Hobbit in one film followed by a LotR prequel film. As I understand it they're now doing an embelished Hobbit over two film allowing the story to follow Gandalf's adventures away from Bilbo. That allows some freedom to include other characters like Aragorn and Sauroman.

I'm pretty sure they'll shoe-horn a lot of the LotR cast in somehow. My personal favourite idea is for the film to open in Rivendell after Frodo meets up with Bilbo and he shows Frodo the finished book 'There And Back Again'. That would allow most of the original fellowship to feature in the first few minutes before they do a flashback from Bilbo reading Frodo the openning passage of his book to the Shire 40 years before.

Anyway, can't wait for the final product and the delay means my daughter will be old enough to watch them.
 
shame for Martin Freeman if he really turned down The Hobbit for the new Sherlock Holmes show, which is a fairly bog standard beeb drama IMO

but who else for Bilbo, Michael Sheen I reckon! (or maybe Tom Hollander)
 
I'm glad martin freeman turned it down , he always gives the same performance .

my main worry is that Jackson may be doing it cos they offered him a big paycheck .

what happened to his Dambusters remake , I was really looking forward to that .
 
Martin Freeman may still play Bilbo. He said himself he would love to do it if the schedule's didn't clash. He would be perfect for it really.
 
Martin Freeman would be an OK Bilbo. Mr Sheen I'm not so sure about. Another possible choice was James McAvoy but he would need to fill out a bit.

The only role cast so far is Gandalf - Sir Ian McKellan. Other than that it's all rumour. Sylvester McCoy is in the running for Radagast The Brown. I'd bet my money on Viggo Mortensen returning in an enlarged role for Aaragorn in the side story. The most interesting casting will be the dwarfs. Brian Blessed for Thorin?
 
I have a funny feeling that the additional content of the 2nd film will probably contain a fair amount of "links" to the other films.

So you could essentially see Gimli in Moria - stuff like that.

I would have thought that a lot of the original cast (Bloom, Mortensen, Wood e.t.c..) would be keeping their schedules fairly loose for the next year though, considering the potential exposure it would bring, and also if there's a shout of getting in on a profit-related deal as well.

Anyway, just been reading on Wiki (the source of all that is true .. *ahem*) that there's still a considerable amount of unused footage with deleted scenes that haven't even been used in the extended editions.

According to that, Jackson claims he would like to use this footage in a future "Ultimate Edition" release ..
 
I don't understand why there's been all this commotion over who's going to play Bilbo.

Has the fantastic Ian Holm vanished off the face of the earth or something?
 
Ian Holm is 79. The Hobbit came before LOTR, so Bilbo is meant to be younger. Also, Bilbo is the main character in the Hobbit whereas he only had a minor role in LOTR - maybe Holm is not up to a big role these days.
 
Quite. Bilbo is around 50 or 60 in the Hobbit - that's the equivelent of 40ish for a human. 40 years pass before the start of the LotR story, and a further 17 years (IIRC) between Biblo leaving for Rivendell and Frodo setting off with Sam. Ian Holme was just about the right age to play Bilbo ten years ago, so he's certainly far too old to play a young Bilbo.
 
Glad they got their man in Martin Freeman, he'll make an excellent Bilbo.

Ritchard Armitage is a bit of a suprise as Thorin - cant quite picture that yet, I guess makeup will do a lot.

The rest seem ok, Kazinsky being the only slightly suprising choice perhaps.
 
I agree think it's a great choice :). It's not often when casting a book that you actually get an actor that's not far off what you imagine a character to look like (although clearly they'd never get it right for everyone).

Also surprised about Richard Armitage, dwarf isn't exactly what springs to mind when I think of him.
 
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