Jackson's Hobbit movies back on track
Shooting finally kicks off in March
Shooting on Peter Jackson's two Hobbit movies will finally get underway on 21 March, Reuters reports.
The pair of Lord of the Rings prequels were originally slated for release in 2010 and 2011, but have been been hit by a series of delays as well as the departure of director Guillermo del Toro over "issues around the funding of the films".
At one point, Warner Brothers threatened to shift the projects out of New Zealand, prompted by fears that union action could hit production. Now, though, Jackson himself will take the helm at Stone Street Studios in Wellington and on location in his native land.
As we previously noted, the first film will be an adaptation of The Hobbit, and will hit the big screen in December 2012.
The second - slated for release a year later - is an "original story" bridging the 60-year gap between Tolkien's first Middle Earth outing and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The cast of the two films includes Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen and Ken Stott, Reuters notes. ®
COMMENTS
Great. Philippa "Improving Tolkien" Boyens strikes again
@ JDX
Horrific travesty, given who will likely be writing it.
Given the US-centric reframing of the Jackson films, expect the second film to be about Aragorn going off to be part of 'regime change' in Near Harad on the basis of reports of Rings of Mass Destruction there (there's acting work again for both Viggo and Liv!).
delays?
I had heard there were delays filming The Hobbit - I just presumed they were short-staffed.
Coat? Thanks, it's bitter out...
Why ever not?
The creation, corrupting influence, theft, and recovery sort of of the silmarils would make for some absolutely, utterly, and totally tremendous films, IMHO.
Imagine the the fall of Gondolin as a hour-long set piece, with epic Balrog vs Elf action....mmmmmm....Balrog action.....
<cough> sorry about that, lost my train of thought for a moment.
Film might be the only medium that CAN
The Silmarillion was drawn out, wordy, and compared to other works, pretty boring, but it did have a compelling story and some great scenes. It was overly full of descriptive text, which, translates into a few seconds on screen, making all the boring parts vanish and leaving a good story...
Prequel may not be such a bad thing
The Tolkien estate's been milking prequels, sequels and stitched together scraps for decades now, and with steadily decreasing success. An original story helmed by someone who's demonstrated a stunning grasp of how to tell the original stories in a concise (in LOTR terms) and gripping fashion has the potential to be much better.
