speaking of the GK...he doesn't really have a huge role in the book. I hope they find a way to expand upon his character in the movie. I thought he was a really cool character, at least from the way he was described and the couple of lines he had.
Hobbiton Movie Set and Farm Tours managing director Russell Alexander has negotiated the right to continue taking tour groups as the set is recreated – possibly right up until filming.
Sales and operations manager Henry Horne said people would see a live set as it was created. "Even for someone like me – a tour guide – I've only ever seen it as it is. Seeing the hobbit holes starting to be recreated – that will be very exciting."He was unsure what restrictions might be placed on visitors but was confident they would get a good view of the site.
It's not known when filming may start on New Zealand locations but Mr Horne said he understood it would take most of next year to create the set for the movie directed by Guillermo del Toro and produced by Peter Jackson.
Already gardeners contracted by the film company New Line Cinema have begun work, which includes planting orchard trees and hedgelines. More hobbit holes appear to be planned as several boards have been placed on a hillside next to the present hobbit holes with painted red circles.
The Waikato Times couldn't have chosen a worse day to visit Hobbiton on Wednesday as driving rain had sheep huddling in hobbit holes and strong winds turned umbrellas inside out. The site on Buckland Rd, 10 minutes outside Matamata, usually hosts six tours a day. The hardy tour group included an American, two Chinese and a German couple.
A bus took the party on a 2.5km drive to the back of the Alexander farm where New Line Cinema owns a 3ha film set. Guide Benji Olesen said the site on the Alexanders' 500ha sheep farm was spotted by Jackson on an aerial search for locations for Lord of the Rings in 1998. He loved it because of its rolling hills, fantastic views and a nearly symmetrical 175-year-old pine tree in front of a lake which was to feature in the trilogy as "the party tree".
Mr Olesen said the only sign of human activity in all directions was a distant haybarn which was painted brown and dressed up as a tree for the movies.
He described the extraordinary lengths Jackson went to keep authenticity such as covering native trees with branches from beech trees and buying an oak tree to overlook Bag End. It was cut into pieces, numbered and bolted together then covered with 250,000 artificial leaves from Taiwan. Trees and hedges were constantly transplanted throughout filming and injected with hormones to keep them looking healthy.
Well if they're going to take over the nation of New Zealand again to make these films, then it kinda makes sense to let the locals tour a bit (albeit on a setting that has largely, already been seen anyway).
Rumors ran around last week that The Hobbit might not arrive until 2012, based on the fact that the film’s shoot might be pushed back a few months later than initially intended. That’s not the case at all, said producer and co-writer Peter Jackson while doing some US publicity for The Lovely Bones. The films will arrive on the dates originally intended: we’ll see the first in December 2011 and the second a year later.
This is what Jackson said to Collider:
Nothing has changed as far as I am concerned…You don’t want to believe everything you read on the internet. We were due to deliver the scripts and be shooting sometime around April and now I think I said in an interview we were shooting in June. And somehow people are now saying the film is delayed. As far as I am aware, they are not delayed at all. I am not even sure when we are going to start shooting…we are delivering the scripts just after Christmas they’ll be finished and we’ll be shooting as soon as we possibly can.
Additionally, IGN talked to Jackson about the many rumors around the casting of Bilbo Baggins, played in the Lord of the Rings films by Ian Holm. The big names who’ve been bandied about in relation to the character include Daniel Radcliffe, James McAvoy, Martin Freeman and David Tennant. Some of those are reasonable, some (like Radcliffe) are fairly ludicrous. Jackson says that some were not under consideration, but refused to specify which, so as not to lend additional weight to names he didn’t cross off the list.
But he did mention that casting directors are auditioning unknowns for Bilbo as well. Which isn’t really out of the blue, and shouldn’t be taken to mean that the character will necessarily be played by an unknown. The list of possible ‘name’ actors who are right for the part is fairly small; factor in willingness and availability and the list shrinks even more. Naturally casting directors are going to look at some unknowns. A new name would also be cheaper than someone established.
When rumors hit the Net last week that the highly-anticipated adaptation of The Hobbit was being delayed a full year, it wasn’t good news for fans who are dying to see this film on the big-screen. However, we were right to treat it as a rumor, as soon afterward, producer Peter Jackson debunked the rumor, saying that as far as he’s concerned there’s been no delay and the film (Part 1) is still on course for a December 2011 release.
So, with that out of the way, one of the biggest questions hovering over The Hobbit is that of who will bring the characters of the classic fantasy tale to life, most importantly (I think you’ll agree) the role of Bilbo Baggins. Clearly, with the story taking place six decades before The Fellowship of the Ring, they can’t use Ian Holm again. Ian McKellen has said in the past an actor is already signed on to play Bilbo, but exactly who that is has remained a mystery up until this point.
Well, with this report from Variety’s Heat Vision Blog, it may mean that instead of being signed, the actor may have just have been kept in mind: Casting for The Hobbit is set to start this week in Los Angeles and London, reports Variety, with Jackson, Guillermo del Toro and Co. apparently set to cast the net wide to find the right actors for the roles. That means we could very well end up seeing an unknown get the role of Bilbo, as opposed to a famous actor as some might expect.
However, Bilbo isn’t the ONLY role to be cast, and Jackson says they’re casting for every role except for Gandalf, which is being reserved for he who played him in the LOTR trilogy, Ian McKellen (wasn’t he confirmed?!). Here’s what Jackson has said about the casting:
Quote:
“We’re auditioning for every role… What we’ve done over the years is discover a lot of interesting actors, like Orlando Bloom (in ‘Rings’), Kate Winslet (in ‘Heavenly Creatures’), Saoirse Ronan (in ‘The Lovely Bones’). So if you start looking and auditioning seriously, it’s amazing what incredible talent you’ll find out there.”
Some very surprising info buried within Variety’s report is Jackson’s denial that he’s approached any actor to reprise their role beyond McKellen as Gandalf. Where does that leave the apparent confirmation of both Hugo Weaving as Lord Elrond and the no-brainer of Andy Serkis returning to play (at least in motion-capture form) Gollum. I doubt Jackson will go with anyone else unless they absolutely knock it out of the park (being a better fit than, for example, Weaving as Lord Elrond). Jackson says that, “Apart from Ian McKellen, who we obviously want to return as Gandalf, we are not really offering any roles to anybody until we’ve done a casting sweep.”
Getting back to the possibilities of unknowns being cast, Jackson says he and del Toro have casting approval for both Part 1 and 2 of The Hobbit, and they feel no pressure to cast big name stars in any of the roles, even Bilbo:
Quote:
“(These movies) have never been a star-driven vehicle. The star is (author J.R.R.) Tolkien and the world he created. We are not under any pressure. We want to find the right people. Casting someone to portray a hobbit is not as easy as you might imagine. They have to have a particular type of physical appearance and a sensibility. And the same with an elf or a dwarf. These are fantastical characters, but you’ve got to find the right people to play them, the right humans to translate these characters.”
Lastly, Jackson also reiterated that The Hobbit is NOT delayed, and that’s it’s still on course for its 2011 release as planned. The status on the scripts is still as we last reported: the first has been handed in already, with the script for Part 2 being halfway written, and they hope to hand in the draft to WB in a few weeks, around Christmas time.
I’d personally love for an unknown actor to be cast in the role of Bilbo Baggins. It’s not like they need a big-name star to get people interested in the project (it’s going to make serious box office bank, mark my words), and in the end there just might not be one out there that suits the role of a hobbit. James McAvoy has often been rumored to play the role, but Jackson has “pooh-poohed” that he’s approached him about it. I think casting McAvoy as Bilbo is just wishful thinking on the part of fans, me included, admittedly. I personally think he’s an amazing choice for the role – I kind of get that vibe that everyone got when Robert Downey Jr. was announced as Iron Man: no on thought of him at first, but as soon as the announcement came it was like a lightbulb turned on.
However, much like it was with Brandon Routh playing Superman, making Bilbo an unknown will really help you invest in the character you’re going to be following, as opposed to just seeing Johnny Depp in a hobbit outfit.
Do you think Bilbo, and the rest of The Hobbit cast, should be played by unknowns? Do you think casting big-name actors would take away from it? Or since it worked in LOTR do you think it’s fine either way? I know it’s been asked a thousand times but who would you like to see play Bilbo Baggins?
Part 1 of The Hobbit is set to be released in December, 2011, with Part 2 following a year later in December, 2012. Shooting is supposed to start filming around the summer next year.
Many fans and moviegoers have been waiting for a reliable source to reveal details about which LOTR characters will be returning for The Hobbit: Part 1. Peter Jackson finally went on record with MTV (Collider noticed and told us) and gave us what we wanted.
The Academy-Award winning director, who’s executive producing and co-writing the coming Hobbit flick, is very busy these days with producer-related responsibilities for The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn and The Lovely Bones (which he also directed). For those of you who’ve been in serious hiding, The Hobbit: Part 1 is to be directed by Guillermo Del Toro, who’s probably best known for his direction on the Hellboy movies along with Pan’s Labyrinth.
Check out who Jackson says could return from the Lord of the Rings trilogy below.
Quote:
“Gandalf, being a 2,000-year-old wizard, is still around and plays a major role in The Hobbit, and we’re having Ian McKellen reprise… There’s a couple of other characters: Elrond, who was played by Hugo Weaving [in the original films], and there’s a possibility of Galadriel, who was played by Cate Blanchett.”
Quote:
“They are elves, so once again, in the realm of Middle-earth, they’re immortal, they don’t age… We have a process that would start with showing them the script. We’re not [beginning] any official process until we have the ‘official’ script that they can read.”
We already know that the script for The Hobbit: Part 1 has been completed and submitted and the second is on track to be finished at the end of this month or beginning of the new year. We also know, despite some rumors, that the first of the duology is still scheduled to open in theaters at the end of 2011.
I’m curious to see if the new Hobbit flicks are so packed with story, character development, etc. that two films are warranted, or if this trick will end up smelling like someone said, “Hey! Why make only one movie out of a beloved story that will gross $800MM worldwide when we can make two?” I guess my final position on that will be in hands of Mr. Del Toro and Mr. Jackson.
Other than the logically appropriate immortals (or whatever Gandalf is) showing up, which character(s) from LOTR would you like to see in The Hobbit: Part 1?
The Hobbit: Part 1 is scheduled for a December, 2011 release.
It appears that Sir Ian McKellen won't be the only Marvel movie vet to appear in The Hobbit. Rumor has it that a certain friendly neighborhood wall-crawler may be headed to Middle-Earth as well.
Latino Review claims that Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire is "in the early stages of talks" to star as Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit. "Tobey hasn't been cast and an offer hasn't been made. It's just talks," the site stresses.
Latino Review's track record on casting scoops is pretty solid, considering they broke the casting of Brandon Routh as Superman, Jake Gyllenhaal as the Prince of Persia, and Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Dark Knight.
The site adds that Maguire should be able to film Spider-Man 4 in the first part of 2010 before segueing to shoot The Hobbit next summer.
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