The world premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in New Zealand last week may have caught the attention of an entire nation and a good chunk of the world's press, but the 166 minute feature's New York premiere nevertheless turned into a lively event Friday night at the Ziegfeld Theater in Midtown. Peter Jackson, fittingly, kicked off the festivities introducing much of the cast, including Sir Ian McKellen (in fact there were a lot of "Sirs" Thursday night including Jackson himself), Martin Freeman, Elijah Wood, Andy Serkis and many of the dwarfs. more »
Prepare for a double dose of mutant powers: The X-Men of the past and future will collide in Bryan Singer's forthcoming sequel X-Men: Days of Future Past, which will bring Patrick Stewart's Professor X and Ian McKellen's Magneto together with their X-Men: First Class counterparts James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender in the same film, Singer announced today. more »
December 14th is the day when Peter Jackson will unleash the first of his Hobbit films, but that doesn't mean it's practically in the can. Jackson is bunkering down in the Park Road Post Production facility in Wellington, New Zealand to finish up the first in the trilogy, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
"It's due to be completed literally two days before the premiere. Hopefully," Jackson comments in the film’s latest production video (below). "You're going to see a lot of sleep-deprived people in this blog — everybody’s working around the clock to get the film finished."
The behind the scenes look shows Jabez Olssen and Jackson editing the film, final construction of hundreds of CGI shots and working on sound effects for the feature which stars Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Cate Blachett and Elijah Wood.
"We’ve got another three weeks...and then another couple films,” Jackson said. “The journey’s long from over, it’s just really starting."
Meanwhile, a new clip from the film also rolled out. The scene shows Gandalf (Ian McKellen) giving a magical sword to Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman). It's rather quick and Gandalf seems to forewarn of its pending need.
"Home is now behind you. The World Is Ahead," Ian McKellen, as Gandalf, says in voiceover in this latest official trailer from Peter Jackson's first installment of The Hobbit trilogy, which is subtitled, An Unexpected Journey. The movie is set for release on Dec. 14, and the trailer offers glimpses of Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, McKellen as Gandalf, a CGI-assisted Andy Serkis as Gollum, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel and Hugo Weaving as Elrond. more »
Empire caught up with Flight of the Conchords comedian Bret McKenzie, who'd recently reprised his Lord of the Rings character in The Hobbit as a musical elf, now named Lindir. "This time, if I make the edit, I'll speak in Elvish. But I don't sing. They haven't asked me to do the theme song yet! Maybe this time it's me and Annie Lennox." More importantly, he revealed that Gandalf himself is a Conchords enthusiast. "Ian McKellen, it turns out, is a big fan of Flight Of The Conchords. He and I had a good time on set, coming up with ideas for Hobbit: The Musical. We're still developing it..." Wizards -- they're just like us! [Empire]
